Wood v. Yant
Wood v. Yant
Opinion of the Court
Early in 1911, plaintiff in error, with her husband, Will. S. Wood, and daughter, Armelda, resided on a ranch near Fowler, Colo. Both she and her husband carried separate accounts with the Fowler State Bank, and borrowed money from said bank on their joint and individual notes. Checks were drawn against both of the accounts by each of the parties, and some were drawn against the account of Minnie P. Wood by her daughter, Armelda, all
“To Fowler State Bank, Fowler, Colo.:
“For the purpose of establishing credit from time to time with you for money borrowed or otherwise, the undersigned furnish the following statement as being a true and correct statement of all their assets and liabilities on the 26th day of May, 1912. Upon the faith of such statement you can rely in loaning money to them.
“ASSETS.
“Beal Estate (Give detailed description, location and value) : 252 acre farm in Fayette and Highland County, Ohio, for which we refused a cash offer of $32,000.00; 160 acre farm in Otero County, Colo., valued at $12,000.00; 16 houses in Cripple Creek, probably worth $10,000.00.
“Live Stock (Give number, age, sex, value and location) : About 50 mares and colts, value about $2,000.00; other live stock, cows, calves and hogs, about $500.00.
“Personal Property: 12 houses, furnished, value $500.00.
“Total assets, $54,000.00.
“LIABILITIES.
“Encumbrance on Beal Estate, $9,000.00.
“To whom, when due and rate of interest? Northwetsern Mut. Life Ins. Co.; due in 1916; interest 6 per cent.
“Encumbrance on Live Stock? None.
“To whom, when due and rate, of interest..........?
“Other borrowed money, Fowler State Bank, about $750.00. ,
*192 “To whom and when due..............?
“Other liabilities: Undue accounts, $200.00; unpaid taxes, about $500.00.
“Total liabilities, $9,950.00.
“Are you endorser or surety on any note or other obligation? No.
“If so, indicate amounts and for whom.............
“Do you hold good title in and to the above described real estate, and is it in your name? Yes.
“If not, in whom is the title vested?..............
(Signed) “Will S. Wood,
“Minnie P. Wood.
“Date signed, May 26, 1912.”
Upon the strength o.f this statement the bank made loans .from time to time, amounting to the sum of $2,100, which were secured by the individual notes of Will S. Wood, entered to the credit of Minnie P. or Will S. Wood, and checked against by both Will S. and Minnie P. Wood, and also by their daughter, signing “Minnie P; Wood by Armelda Wood.” All of these checks were also paid and can-celled in the usual course of business, the pass book of the account balanced and returned with the cancelled checks, according to the testimony of the president of the bank, to the owner. When the notes securing said loans became due, the president of the bank was in possession of information to the effect that the property mentioned in the statement was in the name of Minnie P. Wood, and that apparently Will S. Wood had no right or title thereto. He therefore insisted that Minnie P.. Woqd shquld join in a note to renew the loans, and upon her refusal to do so the bank caused judgment to be entered upon the notes of Will S. Wood, had execution issued thereon, by virtue of which defendant in error, as Sheriff o.f Otero County, levied upon certain nroperty, including certain lands containing about 160 acres in Otero County, and standing upon the records of said county in the name of Minnie P. Wood, and also 5 shares
These and other facts and circumstances were before the trial court in passing upon the question, and having met the witnesses face to face, it found on such evidence that “the said five shares of corporate stock were included and were intended to be included by the plaintiff in said credit statement in which the plaintiff represented that the property therein described included all of the property of the plaintiff and her said husband.”
We think that this finding of the trial court has abundant evidence to support it, and therefore that it should not be disturbed.
Error is assigned, but not argued, to the admission and exclusion of certain testimony, but after a very careful examination of the record we are satisfied that the plaintiff in error was not, and could not be, prejudiced by the rulings of the trial court in these particulars
The only other question insistently pressed in argument by plaintiff’s counsel is that there is not such a privity of interest existing between the judgment creditor, The Fowler State Bank, and the intervenor, Martin Eder, who purchased the water stock at the execution sale, as to entitle him to the relief he prays, even though an equitable estoppel might have been invoked by the judgment creditor, If the judgment creditor had the right to sell said stock for the satisfaction of its judgment, then any purchaser at the execution salé would have secured the same right, as a purchaser, that the. judgment creditor, through the sheriff, had
The trial court found that the plaintiff, at the very threshold of this controversy, did not come into court with clean hands. The financial statement, signed by Will S. and Minnie P. Wood, and presented by them to The Fowler State Bank, showed that they together owned property of the value of $43,550 in excess of all their indebtedness. With such a showing the president and manager of the bank had every reason to believe that either or both of them had an abundance of unincumbered property sufficient to insure the satisfaction of all credits extended to Will S. Wood.
Counsel for plaintiff, in his written argument, states that
“There is no ambiguity about that property statement. On its face it purports to be given to establish joint credit at the bank. This was the purpose of Minnie P. Wood in signing the statement.”
It is not so important to determine the undisclosed intention of Minnie P. Wood as it is to determine what probable effect her representations had on the mind of the president and manager of The Fowler State Bank, acting as a person of reasonable precaution, in extending the credits in controversy to Will S. Wood. The statement she signed and filed with the bank reads:
“For the purpose of establishing credit from time to time with you for money borrowed or otherwise, the undersigned (Will S. and Minnie P. Wood) furnish the following statement as being a true and correct statement of all their assets and liabilities on the 26th day of May, 1912. Upon the faith of such statement you can rely in loaning money to them.”
After the money was advanced on the strength of such statement, it was placed to the joint credit of Will S. and Minnie P. Wood, and checked out by both of them at pleasure; but when the day of re-payment arrived, they came
It is a well established general rule, applicable alike in law and equity, that parties shall not be entitled to establish a claim, or to enforce a defence, by reason of acts or misrepresentations which proceeded from themselves, or were adopted or acquiesced in by them after full knowledge of their nature and quality; and, further, that where misrepresentations have been made by one of two litigating parties, in his dealings with the other, a court of law will either decline to interfere or will so adjust the equities between them as to prevent an undue benefit from accruing to that party who is unfairly endeavoring to take advantage of his own wrong. Broom’s Legal Maxims, 7th Ed., 238,
A clear import of the financial statement is that the property listed therein was the common property of Will S. and Minnie P. Wood, who signed the same, and was a holding out of said property by Minnie P. Wood at the time the statement was signed, as the property, in part at least, of Will S. Wood, which she now says was her sole property. Such a holding out of property may make the same liable for advances secured thereon on the faith of such representations, to the extent that others were misled to their injury thereby while extending credit in good faith on the strengh thereof. Prewitt v. Lambert, 19 Colo., 7-12, 34 Pac., 684.
A wife’s separate property may become subject to the debts of her husband in case he be permitted to deal with it and obtain credit upon it as his own, and with her knowledge and consent. De Votie et al. v. McGerr, 15 Colo., 467, 24 Pac., 923, 22 Am. St., 426. And while this court feels
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.