Witt's Administrator v. Warwick
Witt's Administrator v. Warwick
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
This case is the sequel of Warwick v. Warwick reported in 31 Gratt., at page 70.
It is an effort on the part of the appellant to have set-off against a certain balance of rent due by his intestate, and which the circuit court of Nelson county decreed on the twenty• eighth March, 1879, to the appellee, Mrs. Ellen Warwick, “for the use of herself and children,” three small sums of money, aggregating the sum of $132.12, which had been previously advanced to her husband, and also the sum of $326.59, the amount of the costs in this court on the former appeal, which have been paid over to the said Ellen Warwick, but to which, it is contended, the appellant’s intestate was entitled under an assignment, to which I shall hereafter have occasion to allude. The original bill in the cause was filed by Jacob Warwick, the. husband and trustee of the said Ellen Warwick, against his wife and children, his judgment creditors, and others. In it it was alleged, inter alia, that the plaintiff had applied more than $15,000 of the trust money of his wife and children, derived from her father’s estate, to the payment of a lien on a tract of land, known in the proceedings as “ the Rockfish tract of land,” and it was insisted that to the extent of the trust money so paid the wife and children were entitled to be substituted to the benefit of the lien. The bill further states that a number of judgments had been recovered against the complainant, which constituted liens on his property, so that he could not dispose of it for his relief, and, after giving a statement of his property, asked that all of his lien creditors be made parties to the suit, their rights ascertained, and his property sold for their payment. It is thus made manifest that one of the main objects of the bill was to invoke the aid of a court of chancery for his wife and children, against the conse
The decision of the circuit court being adverse to the rights of Mrs. Warwick, she, by her next friend, appealed to this court, and this court decided that there was a “ lien by way of an implied trust ” on the Rockfish land in favor of Mrs. Warwick and her children to the amount of $2,900, with interest on the same from May 2d, 1863.
This land, which it thus appears never belonged to Mrs. Warwick and was no part of her trust estate, was rented out by order of the court from January 1,1876, until it was sold in August, 1879.
When the cause went back from this court to the circuit court of Nelson county, that court decreed a sale of the land for enough cash to pay the costs of sale and the costs of Mrs. Warwick’s next friend expended in her prosecution of her claim in that court and in the court of appeals. And it having been represented to the court by special receiver Whitehead that he had not yet collected the rents of the Rockfish lands, the court decreed further that the receiver should proceed to collect said rent “ and pay over the same to Mrs. Ellen Warwick, provided said rents shall not amount to more than the accumulated interest on the $2,900, the principal sum decreed to Mrs. Warwick by the aforesaid decree of the court of appeals”; the court being of opinion that Mrs. Warwick is entitled to use the interest, and only the principal is required to be kept intact.
The obvious purpose of the chancellor in making this decree was to ignore the trustee, Jacob Warwick, and to decree the fund to those who were entitled to the beneficial use and enjoyment of it. The decree is as clear and explicit as human language can make it. The direction to the special receiver is that he shall “ proceed to collect said rent and pay over the same to Mrs. Ellen Warwick for
This view of the matter disposes of the case so far as the three small drafts aggregating $132.12, which were drawn by Jacob Warwick, signing himself trustee, and paid by the intestate, are concerned, for it must be manifest that if Jacob Warwick had neither the right to collect or use these rents, that it was beyond his power either with or without the assent of the lessee, Witt, to charge them either by drafts, drawn in his own name, or as trustee. But it is further contended, for the appellant, that the rents should at least be credited by the amount of the costs recovered by Mrs. Warwick in this court in the cause of Warwick against Warwick and als. And in support of this contention an assignment of these costs by Jacob Warwick, trustee, to D. A. Witt “ to reimburse himself for amount loaned me, so far as it will go ” is produced. And from this paper it is argued that Witt must have furnished Mrs. Warwick, or her trustee, the money to have her case heard in the court of appeals, and that it being in proof that these costs were paid to Mrs. Warwick, and not to Witt; that a court of equity ought to enforce the assignment to reimburse Witt’s
Decree affirmed.
Reference
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- 1. Trustees&emdash;Powers&emdash; Trust subject&emdash;Rents.&emdash;Where rents of trust subject are decreed to be paid directly by receiver to c. q. t.&emdash; Held : That trustee has no power to collect or use same, and his drafts drawn on and paid by lessee cannot be set-off against the rent due. 2. Idem&emdash;Loans to trustee&emdash;Set-offs to rent.&emdash;Costs recovered in suit where- by real estate was subjected to trust, and the rents decreed to be paid directly by receiver to c. q. t., were assigned by trustee to reimburse lessee for loans to him, without evidence that the loans were for benefit of c. q. t.&emdash; Held : Not to be set-offs against the rent due.