John v. Battle

Citations

• 58 Tex. 591
• 1883 Tex. LEXIS 71

Syllabus

<p>I. Following- trust funds of married women.— A married woman brought suit in which her husband refused to join, against purchasers of a tract of land solc| at public sale- by the assignee in bankruptcy of her husband as the property of the bankrupt. She alleged that the land, though originally purchased and conveyed to her husband, -was paid for in part with her separate funds inherited from her father, and held in trust' under his will by her husband for her benefit. She sued to establish her title, and for partition between the purchasers at the bankrupt sale and herself, asking that an interest in the land should be set aside to her, which should bear the same ratio to the entire tract that the amount her separate property contributed to the estate did to the entire purchase money. Held,</p> <p>(1) Purchasers with notice at a bankrupt sale, made under bankrupt proceedings against the husband, could acquire no right to the wife’s equitable interests in the land.</p> <p>(2) After the refusal of the husband to join his wife in the suit, she was entitled to sue alone.</p> <p>(3) Public notice given at the bankrupt sale that the wife claimed an interest in the land, and that whoever purchased it bought subject to that interest, charged the purchaser with notice of the character of her title.</p> <p>(4) The allegation in the wife’s petition that her husband held a specified amount of money as a trust fund for her benefit, obtained by him under a trust created by her father’s will, was a sufficient description of the trust.</p> <p>(5) The fact that a rural homestead, situated on the tract of land sold, was reserved and set aside to the husband for the family at the bankrupt sale, could not affect the wife’s right to have full satisfaction of her trust funds invested in the entire tract of land out of the remainder of the tract sold.</p> <p>(6) A decree allowing the purchasers at bankrupt sale the benefit in partition of all their improvements made since their purchas