Laclede Bank v. Keeler

Citations

• 103 Ill. 425
• 1882 Ill. LEXIS 193

Syllabus

<p>1. Attachment—equitable interest in land subject thereto. Under the act of 1869, amendatory of the chapter of the Revised Statutes of 1845, entitled “Attachments,” equitable interests in lands were made subject to attachment to the same extent as legal titles.</p> <p>2. Same—interpleader—of the issues to be tried. This amendment was intended to obviate the prior rulings of this court that equitable interests were not liable to attachment, but not to change the law as it then stood relating to the trial of issues made on interpleader by third parties claiming the property.</p> <p>3. Where a third party interpleads in an action by attachment, claiming the land attached, and an issue is formed as to whether the debtor has an equitable interest subject to the writ, that issue should be submitted to a jury, and it is error for the court to refuse to submit it, or to exclude evidence tending to show such equitable interest in the debtor.</p> <p>4. A third person filed an interpleader in an action by attachment, claiming to be the owner of the land attached. The attaching creditor replied that although the deed under which the claim was made was absolute in form, it was but a mortgage to secure the payment of $7756, and the land was worth $15,000, to which the claimant rejoined, denying that the deed was a mortgage. On the trial the claimant under the deed proved the execution of a deed from the grantee of the attachment debtor, when the plaintiff offered to prove that the deed from the debtor was in fact only a mortgage, made to secure $7756, and the value of the land, and also that claimant, when he received his deed from the grantee of the debtor, knew his grantor only held the title as a security for the debt named, and also knew of the levy of the writ when he took such deed, all of which evidence the court refused to admit: Held, that the court erred in rejecting the proposed evidence.</p>