Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

87 Ala. 545

Moorer v. Moorer

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1888

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1888-12-15

Heard before the Hon. John A. Foster. The record in this case does not show when the bill was filed, nor does it show the date of any of the proceedings in. the cause, except that the chancellor’s decree is dated January 22d, 1889.

Relies on Gordon, Rankin & Co. v. Tweedy · Pickett v. Pipkin · Flewellen v. Crane

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1888-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently July 1945

3 state decisions

101888189019001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

STONE, C. J.

¶1Sections 2927-8 of the Code of 1886 provide a remedy for assignees of judgments or decrees, who seek to enforce them by mesne or final process, issued upon the judgment assigned. These sections have no application to separate or independent suits, brought for the collection of debts evidenced by judgments or decrees. When the effort is made, as it generally may be, to collect by suit a debt due by judgment or decree, different rules prevail. Code, § 2170. If an action at law be resorted to, then the judgment is not such a contract for the payment of money, as that the beneficial owner can sue on it in his own name. Smith v. Harrison, 33 Ala. 706; Lovins v. Humphries, 67 Ala. 437. The rule is different in chancery. Whoever has the rightful ownership, whether legal or equitable, is the proper complainant.

¶2We think the present bill .must be held insufficient. We suppose its purpose-was to uncover, and subject to the pay*547ment of N. J. Moorer’s debt, certain lands, which it charges were conveyed by the latter to his children, after incurring the liability the bill seeks to enforce. The bill avers that the land so conveyed was worth one thousand dollars, and that the consideration of the conveyance was thirty dollars. It makes the deed of conveyance a part of the bill as an exhibit. The habendum clause of the deed is, “To have and to hold whatever interest and title I may and do have by reason of my survivorship of my late wife, Mrs. M. S. Moorer, to whom said lands belonged.” We have now stated every thing the bill contains, tending in the slightest manner to assail the bona fides of the transaction.

¶3If the conveyance had been of the title in fee of a tract of land worth a thousand dollars, on the paltry consideration of thirty dollars, it would probably be our duty to pronounce the consideration so grossly inadequate, as to stamp the transaction as fraudulent. But that is not this case. Moorer sold and conveyed only the interest and title he had, and we have not been furnished with the data for finding them out. The bill does not dispute the payment of the consideration, does not allege the conveyance was voluntary, does not aver what interest Moorer had, nor what it was worth, and gives no predicate for ascertaining its value. It does not even aver that the consideration was inadequate, but leaves that to be worked out from the meagre statements set forth above. Pleadings must be more definite than this. —Matthews v. Mo. Mut. Ins. Co., 75 Ala. 85; Burford v. Steele, 80 Ala. 147; Klewellen v. Crane, 58 Ala. 627; Pickett v. Pipkin, 64 Ala. 520; Gordon v. Tweedy, 71 Ala. 202; Caldwell v. King, 76 Ala. 149.

¶4We will not make any order of dismissal, but will leave that for the chancellor’s action, after considering a motion for leave to amend, should it be made.

¶5Beversed and remanded.

/87/ala/545 · .json · Public domain