Feigley v. Feigley

Mason, J., delivered the opinion of this court. The supplemental bill having been received, without objection on the part of the defendants, we.must treat it as properly a part of the case. It having reaverred the substantial allegations of the original bill, as to the Conduct of the husband, which constituted the ground of the plaintiff’s application for her divorce, we must treat the facts deposed to' by the several witnesses, as supportive of the plaintiff’s case, although most of those facts occurred subsequent to the filing of the original bill, but prior to the filing of the supplemental bill. The testimony, we think, under those circumstances' fully sustains the plaintiff’s case, and entitles her to her divorce, a mensa et thoro.

So’ much therefore of the decree as grants the divorce is affirmed.- The defendant,-Mary Ann Feigley, having answered the supplemental bill, so far as the same relates to the conveyance under which she claims, without objection, must be regarded as- having submitted her rights under that deed for adjudication under the present proceedings. The supplemental bill, among other things, seeks to vacate the deed from Isaac Feigley to his sister Mary Ann, upon the ground of its having been made fraudulently, to defeat the marital rights of the complainant. ⁵⁶¹ The first objection taken by the defendant to this bill is, that there does not subsist such a relation between a husband and wife, as would entitle the latter to assail her husband’s conveyances upon the ground of fraud, as might be done in the case of an ordinary creditor at common law, or under the statute of Elizabeth, who finds himself hindered, delayed or defrauded by means of such a conveyance. In other words, does the wife stand in relation to her husband in reference to her claim upon him for a support, or for alimony, in the same attitude that a creditor stands towards his debtor ? We think, to a certain extent, she does.

The language of the statute of Elizabeth is surely broad enough to embrace such a case. It provides, “that all and every grant, See., for the intent or purpose to delay, hinder and defraud creditors, and others, of their just and lawful actions, &c., shall be void,” &c. The statute seems to design to embrace others than those who are strictly and technically creditors: and if under such a comprehensive clause, as “creditors and others,” a wife, who has been made the victim of her husband’s fraud, is not to be included, we are at a loss to ascertain to whom else it was designed to relate. We do not wish to be understood as carrying this doctrine to an extent which would impose any restraint upon the husband in the free and unlimited exercise of his light to alienate his property at will, even though in the exercise of this right he strips himself of all means of supporting or maintaining his wife, provided he does so bona fide, and with no design of defrauding her of her just claims upon him and his estate.

The fraudulent intent in all such cases being the true test of the validity of the transaction. Ricketts vs. Ricketts, 4 Gill, 105. There is this difference between the claim of the wife upon her husband’s estate, and that of a creditor upon the estate of his debtor: in the latter case a debtor cannot, even by a bona fide gift of the whole, or a part of his property, to a third party, impede his creditor in the collection of his debt. Under such circumstances, such a transfer would be voluntary, and as against a bona fide creditor, void in point of law.

Not so ⁵⁶² as respects the gifts or voluntary transfers by a husband of his property in relation to the rights of his wife. If not made with the actual intent of defeating the’rights of his wife,, they will be sustained,, although they leave her without the means of a subsistence. The next inquiry then is,