Price v. De Ford

Cochran, J., delivered the opinion of this court. This appeal was taken from a judgment of condemnation upon an attachment issued on a judgment, obtained by the appellees against Joseph C. Wilson, and laid in the hands of Augustus M. Price, to whom Wilson and one Robert W. Hyman had executed a deed of certain property belonging to them, as co-partners, in trust for the benefit of their creditors. Before the trial below, the parties entered into an agreement that the case should be tried for the purpose of testing the validity of the deed of trust, and admitting the respective amounts of the appellees’ claim, and of assetts in the hands of the garnishee. The record presents two exceptions, the first of which was taken to the rejection of a part of the evidence of B. M. Heighe, offered on behalf of the appellant; and the second, to the instruction granted upon the appellees’ prayer declaring the deed, as against them,.invalid and void.

The agreement filed in the case renders the consideration of ⁴⁹⁴ the question raised on the first exception unnecessary. The effect of the evidence rejected would have been to show, from the knowledge of the witness, and from declarations made to him by both Wilson and Hyman, their relative interests in the property and assets in the hands of the garnishee, and the particular sources from which they were derived. In no aspect of the case, had the evidence been admitted, could it affect the appellees, as by the agreement, their rights must be determined by the character of the deed. ■The objections urged by the appellees, in support of the instruction against the vaiiditjr of the deed, were, 1st, because the*property and effects of three firms were assigned by it, in trust for the benefit of the creditors of one firm, without any provision for the payment of the debts of the other two; 2nd, because it contains a power to the trustee to compound doubtful debts due to the trust estate; and 3rd, because it declares that certain notes, pledged by the grantors, were made for their accommodation, and directs their return to the several makers, upon payment of the indebtedness for which they had been pledged. We shall consider these objections in the order stated.

In the argument of the case it was not pretended, that Wilson was not entitled to the property mentioned in the deed, as having belonged to the firms of Wilson, Young & Company, and J. C. Wilson & Company, nor that such property did not, at the time of executing it, belong to the firm composed of Wilson and Robert W. Hyman. On the contrary, the appellees were obliged to assume, in accordance with the theory of their case, that the property so described was property of Wilson, and as such liable to condemnation on their attachment. The first of the objections to the deed was made to depend, not upon a want of title in Wilson to the property in question, but upon ,the devotion of it to the payment of the debts of the grantors, as co-partners, without; regard to the creditors of the antecedent firms, in which Wilson had been a partner, and in that