Skinner v. Holt

Citations

• 9 S.D. 427
• 69 N.W. 595
• 1896 S.D. LEXIS 188

Syllabus

<p>1. Though a bond on appeal from the county to the circuit court is defective in that it does not run to the state, nor specify the place of residence of either of the sureties, but contains all the essential elements of a common-law bond, and it appears that the appeal is taken in good faith, the circuit court, under Comp. Laws, Sec. 5235, may, on the trial of the cause, permit a sufficient undertaking to be filed.</p> <p>2. Laws 1890, Chap. 51, Sec. 21, providing that a policy of life insurance, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, shall inure to the separate use of the husband or wife independently of creditors, and that an endowment policy, payable to the assured on attaining a certain age, shall be exempt from liabilities for his debts, violates the constitutional provision declaring that the right of the debtor to enjoy the comforts and necessaries of life shall be recognized by wholesome laws, and exempting from forced sale a reasonable amount of personal property, the kind and value of which is to be fixed by g’eneial laws.</p> <p>3. After an appeal had been taken from a judgment of the county court decreeing that the proceeds of a nolicy of insurance on the life of and payable to the estate of an insolvent, who had died intestate leaving a wife and minor children, were assets of his estate for the partial payment of debts, the legislature enacted (Laws 1895, Chap. 89) that the avails of any policy of insurance “heretofore or hereafter issued upon the life of any person,” and payable to the estate of the insured, etc., shall, to an amount not exceeding $5,000, inure to the separate use of the widow or husband or minor children, independently of the creditors of deceased. Held, that said act did not affect the rights of creditors under said judgment; to hold otherwise would deprive unreversed judgments of the element of conclusiveness, intrenched upon the coustitutional principle which separates the legislative and judicial powers, and in effect