Adams v. Weaver

The Court. These are two actions of replevin, brought by the respondents respectively, and, by stipulation of counsel, tried together.

The appeal is from an order in each case denying defendant’s motion for a new trial, and the two cases come up on the same record.

The question involved in each case (aside from a proposition involving the exclusion of a deposition offered by defendant as testimony) relates to the validity of certain conveyances of the property in dispute made by one J. R. Williams to the plaintiffs in the actions.

The property transferred to plaintiff Elizabeth Adams is a combined steam harvester and engine, and that transferred to Elizabeth Adams and L. 0. Stephens, executrix and executor of D. 0. Adams, deceased, consists of horses, mules, sheep, farming implements, hay) grain, etc., all of which was situate on the D. O. Adams ranch in the county of Yolo.

The defendant, N. M. Weaver, is sheriff of the county of Yolo, and, as such, levied upon the property in dispute under an execution upon a judgment in favor of Stanton, Thompson & Co., and against J. R. Williams, for $2,375.78 and costs, entered October 4, 1892.

The execution was levied October 4, 1892, and defendant’s claim is that the property at the date of the levy was the property of said J. R. Williams, the judgment debtor, and subject to the payment of his debts. The findings of the court were in favor of the plaintiffs in each case upon all the material issues.

The attack of defendant upon the transfers of the property by J. R. Williams to the plaintiffs, respectively, is predicated upon the theory that such transfers were void under the statute of frauds. There is really but little conflict in the evidence. It tended to show that about September 1, 1890, Elizabeth Adams and L. 0. Stephens, as executrix and executor, etc., of D. 0. Adams, deceased, executed to J. R. Williams a lease of the Adams ranch for a term of five years; the lessors to. place a flock of sheep upon the ranch, and to receive in [45]lieu of rent one-third of the hay, grain, etc., produced thereon, and one-half of the product of the sheep.

At the same time Williams purchased from the executors of the estate a large amount of personal property, including therein most of the property involved in these actions. Williams did not pay for the personal property so purchased, but gave his promissory notes therefor as follows: