Breeze v. Brooks

Fraudulent Conveyance — Resulting Trust — Deed to Beneficiary— Action by Creditors of Trustee — Estoppel of Beneficiary. —In an action by the creditors of one who held the legal title to land as a resulting trust in favor of his brother, who paid the consideration for the land, to set aside a deed made to such brother in execution of the trust, on the ground that the conveyance was in fraud of the creditors of the trustee, it is necessary, in order to entitle the creditors to recover upon the ground of estoppel of the beneficiary, to show that the beneficiary was in some way privy to the trustee’s obtaining credit from them, or that in giving such credit they relied upon some affirmative statement or act of the beneficiary other than the mere fact of his permitting the title to stand of record in the name of the trustee, if the creditors did not .examine the record, or rely thereon as an inducement to give credit to the holder of the legal title.

Id. — Reputation of Ownership by Trustee — Recognition of Title by Beneficiary — Knowledge of Creditors. —The creditors of the trustee cannot rely upon the fact that while he was the holder of the legal title he was generally reputed or believed to be the owner, or that his ownership was recognized by the beneficiary in a litigation between the trustee and other parties, where it does not appear that the creditors had knowledge of such general reputation, or of what was done during the litigation, or that they in any way relied thereon in giving credit to the trustee.

Id. — Credit upon Apparent Ownership and Declarations of Trustee in Possession — Knowledge of Beneficiary. — Although it appears that credit was given by the plaintiffs on account of the apparent ownership of the trustee and his exclusive possession of the property and relying upon his declarations that he was the owner thereof, the beneficiary is not bound thereby, if it does not appear that he had any knowledge that the trustee was obtaining credit with the plaintiffs upon the faith of his apparent ownership of the land.

Findings— Construction—Appeal from Judgment—Inference from Facts Found. — The findings of the trial court are to receive such a construction as will uphold rather than defeat its judgment thereon, and whenever, from the facts found by it, other facts may be inferred which will support the judgment, such inference will be deemed to have been made by the trial court, and upon an appeal from that judgment the appellate court will not draw from those facts any inference of fact contrary to that which may have been drawn by the trial court for the purpose of rendering such judgment.

Id. —Decision upon Former Appeal — Findings upon Second Trial. — The findings of the court upon a second trial, after the decision of this court upon a former appeal, must be deemed to have been made in the light of that decision as to what -was essential to a recovery by the plaintiffs, and its failure to find from the evidence the facts then declared to be essential to such recovery, as well as its own construction of its findings, made by rendering judgment for the defendants, must be regarded as its own conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to justify such findings as under the former opinion of this court would authorize a decision in favor of plaintiffs.