Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/93

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NEWELL v. WAGNESS, AS SHEBIFF.
69

hinder and delay creditors. They hold out false colors and false appearances, and mislead and deceive creditors. They give to the property of the vendor the appearance of belonging wholly to another, when in truth he has an interest in it concealed under the trust. It is for this reason that a trust of this kind is in law a fraud. As the obvious tendency of these reservations and trusts is to deceive and defraud creditors, it has not been deemed necessary to stop to inquire into the particular views or motives of individuals in each case; but all courts, relying on the presumption that every man intends the probable consequences of his acts, have at once pronounced all these trusts to be fraudulent, not only within the meaning of the 13 Eliz. c. 5, but at common law.” See Parker v. Pattee, 4 N. H. 176; Smith v. Lowell, 6 N. H. 68; Winkley v. Hill, 9 N. H. 31; Tifft v. Walker, 10 N. H. 100; Smith v. Conkwright, 28 Minn. 23; 8 N. W. Rep. 876; Switz v. Bruce, 20 N. W. Rep. 639. In McCulloch v. Hutchinson, 7 Watts, 434, the court say: “A bill of sale by a debtor to one preferred creditor, purporting on its face to be an absolute conveyance of the goods of the debtor at a fixed price, but in reality accompanied with a secret trust that the creditor shall hold and dispose of the goods for the discharge of a debt much less in amount, and pay over the balance to the debtor, is manifestly a contrivance by which other creditors may be hindered and prevented in the recovery of their debts. It is the secrecy of this trust—a trust incompatible with that which appears on the face of the transaction—that constitutes its illegality.” See, also, King v. Cantrel, 4 Ired. 251; North v. Belden, 13 Conn. 376; Bryant v. Young, 21 Ala. 264; Sims v. Gaines, 64 Ala. 392; Chenery v. Palmer, 6 Cal. 119. The doctrine has become elementary, and applies as well to transfers of real estate as to transfer of goods and chattels. See Bump, Fraud. Conv. 216, and cases cited. The supreme court of the United States in Lukins v. Aird, 6 Wall. 78, state the law as follows: “It is not important to inquire whether, as a matter of fact, the defendant had a purpose to defraud the creditors of Aird; for the fraud in this case is an inference of law, on which the court is as much bound to pronounce the conveyances in question void as to creditors as if the fraudulent intent were directly