Volume 3 — Delaware Chancery

Bill in equity to restrain proceedings under the Landlord and Tenant act against a tenant HOLDING OVER. — The bill alleged that complainant was an Innkeeper, at Newark, of the Washington Hotel ; he had been tenant for two years past and and paid all rent. About Dec. 25th he received written notice to .quit, &c. At and before service Ortlip informed him that he was about to sell, but, if he should not succeed, Marvel should be continued at same rent, $500 and taxes.

Injunction bill to restrain the collection of TWO BONDS. — Michael Robson in his lifetime, held two judgment bonds of his son John Robson, one for $1000, the other for $500. Held: if unattested to operate as a gift dr release. 4.

<p>Attachment for contempt at Chambers and defendant imprisoned for refusal to produce an indentured servant, at the hearing of a petition to discharge the indentures.</p>

INJUNCTION Bill. — This was a bill in equity to restrain the collection of two judgments, both of which had been marked to the use of other parties by the original plaintiffs. No question of law was involved in the merits of the cause.

Bill to set aside a conveyance made in fraud OF MARRIAGE. — William Chandler, deceased; by deed executed three ‘days previous to his marriage with… Held: as heir at law of the real estate and distributee of the personal estate in the event which happened, i. e.-, the intestacy of the father. There were very voluminous depositions, upon no point conflicting, except as to the time of the engagement, and with respect to the evidence upon this subject there was much controversy.

Bill for the specific performance of a parol CONTRACT FOR THE SALE OF LANDS PART PERFORMED.— This case was submitted upon bill and answer without argument. The material facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the Court.

Bill for spegif-ic performance : — This is a bill for the specific performance of an alleged contract for the re-conveyance of title to fifty acres of land, which Cannon, this complainant, with his wife had, by deed dated March 1st, 1864, conveyed to Collins the defendant. The purchase money, $992.06, was secured by two jüdgment notes, one for $500, the other for $492.06, both dated March 1st, 1864, and payable March 1st,' 1869. Judgments were entered on these notes.

Information against the trustee of a charitable USE. — This was an information filed by the Attorney General upon the relation of the persons who were, for the time being, Commissioners of the Levy Court of Kent county, on behalf of the poor white citizens of Kent county, generally, outside of the walls of the poor house.

Bill for an injunction to restrain proceedings AT LAW. — The bill alleged that, on the 19th of September, 1837, in the Orphans’ Court, at Georgetown, on the petition of Stephen H. Gordy, an order was made by the Orphans’ Court, for the partition of the lands of Aaron Gordy Sr., deceased, and for the assignment of dower therein to Sally Gordy, his widow.

Bill for an injunction to stay proceedings at LAW. — The principal.facts of this case were alleged by the bill and admitted by the answers. It appeared that on the 12th of October, 1849, judgment was recovered by the defendant, Cropper, and Samuel B. Hitch, deceased, late trading as Cropper and Hitch, against the complainant and James C. Dunning, late trading as Hastings and Dunning, for $544.94 and costs, with interest from the same date.

Petition for an injunction to restrain a suit AT LAW. — The petition set forth the following facts :— Judgment was confessed, March 2d, 1852, by William W. Wilson, as principal, and Barkley Wilson, Josiah Marvel, James Wilson and Silas Reynolds, as sureties, in favor of the Farmer’s Bank, for $670, with interest from February 19th, 1852. At the same time William W. Wilson was the owner, in fee simple, of a tract of one hundred acres on which the judgment was the only lien.

Bill for Specific Performance. — The bill was filed to obtain a specific performance of a written agreement made by the defendant for the sale, to the complainant, of a farm then owned and occupied by the former.

Bill in Equity for an injunction. — The material facts in this case were these : John F. Clements, a United States deputy collector of internal'revenue, converted the public revenue collected by him… Held: in order to meet their claims when prosecuted to judgment. They had since obtained judgments for their respective claims.

Injunction Bill. — Application for issues. - Production OF DOCUMENTS. — The complainants’ application arose in the course of proceedings upon a bill in equity, to restrain the collection of the official bond of Joseph A. Heston, late cashier of the Farmers’ Bank. Heston was alleged to have made certain defalcations.

Bill for an injunction to restrain proceedings AT LAW. — The defendant, Collier, held the complainant’s judgment bond for $340, dated I'ebruary 28th, 1865, payable in six months, with interest from date. On March 1st, 1866, this bond was assigned by Collier to Garman, who proceeded to collect it by execution. The bill sought to restrain its collection on the ground that the bond, before its assignment to Garman, had been discharged.

Bill in equity for partition of lands under a DEVISE. — Aaron Marshall, by his will, dated July 13th, 1855, after providing for the payment of his debts and funeral charges, directed that his whole… Held: not an eighth of a part of it. As to the objections to the form of the bill we cite Mitf.

Bill in Equity for contribution — John A. Eliason, deceased, by will,dated December nth, 1864, devised his mansion house in Middletown to his eldest son, John Frazier Eliason, in fee simple ; and the residue of his real estate, consisting of three smaller houses and lots in Middletown,- he devised to his executor, in trust for all his five children, John included, with power to sell the real estate, and hold the proceeds, together with the residue of his personal estate, in…

Bill in equity to recover a legacy charged UPON REAL ESTATE. — Mary McMullen, by her will, dated December 1st, i860, devised her real estate, in parts, toiler sons, Henry and John, charging it with all her debts, and with sundry legacies bequeathed by the will, the debts and legacies tobe paid by Henry and John, in shares proportionate to the value of the real estate devised to them, respectively.

Bill in Equity by sureties for an Injunction.-— This was a bill in equity by the sureties in official bonds of Joseph A. Heston, late cashier of the Farmers’ Bank, to restrain the bank from proceeding at law to collect from complainants the amount of certain alleged defalcations of Heston, committed while cashier. The bonds bore date, respectively, January 1, 1862, and January 6, 1865.

Bill for an injunction and for a partnership Account. — The complainant and defendant became partners under a contract for building part of the Hudson River Railroad, the work commencing in the fall of 1847, and ending in the spring of 1850. The business became a losing one.

Bill in equity to restrain proceedings at LAW. — The defendant at the November Term, 1867, of the Superior Court of New Castle county, recovered a judgment against the complainant for $3,359.68. The action was brought at the November Term, 1865, and continued from term to term. On the recovery of the judgment a remittitur was entered for the excess above $3000, which was the amount of damages laid in the narr. .A fi. fa. was issued to the May Term, 1868.

<p>A parol trust may, in the absence of any prohibitory Statute, be set up, even against the grantee under a deed absolute on its face, and without any allegation in the bill that the trust was intended to be declared in the deed and was omitted through fiaud or mistake.</p> <p>Parol evidence is admissible to establish a trust, as against a deed absolute on ' its face, when, the relation of the parties, and the circumstances surrounding the making of the deed, were such as that for the grants^1 to set up the form of the deed as conclusive would constitute a fraud against] the grantor.</p> <p>Such a parol trust, may be established against an absolute deed by verbal admissions by the parties charged, and there is no such rule of evidence as to require, in such a case, proof of facts and circumstances dehors the deed and incompatible with the idea of a purchase.</p> <p>In Eng’and, before he Statute of Frauds, 29 Car. II., uses and trusts might be proved by parol where the mode of conveying the legal estate was such as might be by an act in pais or by parol.</p> <p>The"Seventh Section of the English Statute of Frauds, requiring that trusts of lands be proved by writing, was never in force in this State, having been passed after the settlement of Pennsylvania which then embraced what is now Delaware, and never having been adopted by Statute or at common law in this State.</p> <p>There is a well recognized distinction between contradicting a deed or impairing its legal operation, and raising out of the transaction an equity dehors the deed, binding the grantee’s conscience to hold the land for the real purposes of the conveyance, and not according to its legal operation, when the latter use of it would, under the circumstances, work fraud.</p> <p>It is upon the ground of mala Jides, and not of mere want of caution, that the purchaser for value is affected with notice of a prior claim.</p> <p>The notice must be more than would excite the suspicion of a cautious and wary purchaser, it must have Been so clear and undoubted, with respect to the existence of the prior right,as to make it fraudulent in him, afterwards, ’to take and hold the property.</p> <p>There is no difference, in principle or upon authority, between the kind or measure of notice proper to affect a subsequent purchaser, whether his title is challenged under a prior unregistered conveyance of the legal estate, or under a mere equity or trust attaching to the legal title conveyed to him.</p> <p>The true object and construction of our recording act is to extend to the purchaser for value the like protection, and no more, against a prior secret conveyance of the legal estate, which, without any Statute, courts of equity have always afforded him against prior equities, merely.</p> <p>The same principle applies to the grantor rrnder a prior unregistered deed, as to the holder of a mere equity or trust, seeking to impeach the Iona fides of a subsequent purchaser. The failure to adopt the prescribed mode of protecting himself by recording his deed is itself laches, in the holder of such prior deed, and thus the equities, so far as they depend on any question of diligence between the parties, are, at least, equal. So a party, who seeks to set up as against a subsequent purchaser for value, a secret trust reserved upon an absolute deed, under which possession was given up to the grantee, is himself guilty of laches, in not causing the trust to be inserted in the deed, and his laches is aggravated by his surrender of the possession which holds the grantee out to the world as the absolute owner.</p> <p>Sound policy forbids that a title, bought in good faith, and paid for, should be hazarded upon the qu.-stion, whether due diligence has been exercised in looking after prior latent rights, such as are not disclosed, either by the record or by the deeds under which the purchaser takes his title.</p> <p>The surety in an injunction bond may be discharged in order that he may be . re-examined as a witness, his deposition having been already taken through inadvertence without the removal of the disqualification and publication having passed.</p> <p>While a cause is pending, the injunction bond is under the control of the Court, and the rights of the defendant under it remain subject to such disposal of the instrument, as the Court, in the exercise of its discretion, with a view to the ends of justice in the cause, may make.</p>

Bill in Equity for an injunction, and to recover equitable dower. — This bill was filed to recover equitable dower out of the surplus proceeds of certain real estate which was sold under a mortgage executed by the husband and wife, in the husband’s lifetime. The facts were these : Abraham Cornog, deceased, in his lifetime, to wit: April 6th, 1857, together with his wife, the present complainant, executed a mortgage of certain real estate, for $7,000, payable March 25th, 1862.

Bill in fquity to set aside a conveyance and for AN injunction This was a bill for a decree to rescind the sale of a farm by the defendant Garman to the complainant, made in June, 1868, and executed by a deed dated August 7th, 1868.

Bill in equity for an injunction. — The facts of this case, as made by the record were, that Maclary and one Frederick W. Ridgely and Reznor had formed a mercantile copartnership of equal interest, under the name and style of Ridgely & Maclary, and had commenced business at Ridgely Station, on the line of the Maryland and Delaware Railroad, in Caroline County, Maryland, in the summer of the year 1867, and that, in the month of October following, Reznor sold his interest in…

Bill for the specific performance of a contract IN WRITING for the sale of land. — The memorandum was drawn and signed by the defendant, on the 30th of July, 1867, and is in these words : “1 agree to sell to Alfred R. Crockett, two acres and .

Bill in Equity to restrain proceedings at law, AND FOR AN INJUNCTION; MOTION TO DISSOLVE. — The bill was filed to restrain two suits at law brought by the defendant against the complainant, one being… Held: unpaid. At the same time the due bills for $954 were delivered to defendant.

Injunction Bill'. Application for leave* to amend the bill after answer* : — This was a bill in equity for an injunction to restrain the defendant, a railroad corporation, from removing a side track which fonnected the railroad with the car works of the comr plainant, located adjacent to the road, which side track had been used by the complainant in the receiving bf material and the delivery of finished cars, into and from its works.