A. Peiser & Co. v. Peticolas

Citations

• 50 Tex. 638

Syllabus

<p>1. Sequestration.—A sequestration does not create a lien; it is but a judicial deposit.</p> <p>2. Registration of mortgages.—The effect of the statute requiring the registration of mortgages is not to make a recorded mortgage prima facie valid which, prior to the statute, would have been held fraudulent in law.</p> <p>3. Fraud in law is defined to be such acts or contracts as, although not originating in any actual evil design or contrivance to perpetrate a positive fraud upon other persons, are yet, by their tendency to deceive or mislead other persons, or to violate private or public confidence, or to impair or injure the public interests, deemed equally reprehensible with positive fraud, and therefore are prohibited by law as within the same reason as acts done malo animo.</p> <p>4. Duty op court in fraudulent instruments.—Where well-defined legal fraud is shown upon the face of an instrument itself, without resort to intrinsic testimony, it is the duty of the court to construe and declare its legal effect.</p> <p>5. Fraudulent mortgage—Mortgage on stock of goods.—The retention of possession of a stock of goods by a mortgagor, though the instrument be recorded with power in him to sell the same in the usual course of trade without applying the proceeds to the mortgage debt, but to substitute other goods, is fraudulent in law, without regard to the good faith of the transaction.</p> <p>6. Same.—Such mortgages, although recorded, are void, except as between parties, and will be so declared where the defect is manifest on the face of the instrument or ascertained by verdict of a jury upon testimony.</p>