Manning v. Carruthers

Citations

• 83 Md. 1
• 34 A. 254
• 1896 Md. LEXIS 36

Syllabus

<p>Fraudulent Conveyances—Husband and Wife—limitations—Feme Sole Trader—Trustee in Insolvency—Jurisdiction of Equity— Statutory Construction.</p> <p>A husband who was at the time insolvent transferred his business to his wife, without consideration, and thereafter pretended to carry it on as her agent, without any' compensation. Various pieces of property were subsequently conveyed directly to the wife by the parties from whom they' were purchased, and were paid for from the profits of the business. The husband applied for the benefit of the insolvent law and his trustee in insolvency filed a bill in equity to subject the property so conveyed to the wife to the payment of the husband’s creditors. Held, that the alleged transfer of the business, together with the various conveyances of property, constituted a scheme to defraud the creditors of the husband, and that the trustee in insolvency was entitled to the relief asked for.</p> <p>Some of the conveyances by which property was conveyed to the insolvent’s wife were executed more than three years before the bill in this case was filed and before the passage of the Act of 1892, chap. 267, which provides that conveyances from a husband to a wife shall not be valid if in prejudice of the rights of his subsisting creditors, who, however, must assert their claims within three years after the acquisition of the property by the wife. Held, that this statute was not retroactive, and could not operate to destroy the right to vacate the fraudulent conveyances then vested in the husband’s creditors, and that the limitation of three years began to run only from the date of the Act as to prior conveyances.</p> <p>Held, upon the facts of the case, that the above-mentioned conveyances to the wife were not made to her as a feme sole trader engaged in a bona fide business, and were not within the purview of Code, Art. 45, sec. 7, which authorizes married women to engage in business.</p> <p>A trustee in insolvency may maintain a bill