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Opinion.

fore, a chancery court is the appropriate tribunal for the enforcement of the remedy against her."

The adjudications of this court upon the powers and liabili ties of married women as to their separate estates are numerous and too familiar to require citation or comment. Some of them are cited in the opinion of Burks J. in Bain & Bro. v. Buff's adm'r, 76 Va. 371. The doctrine taught by them, so far as applicable to this case, is that, when a married woman possesses a separate estate of which she has the jus disponendi, and expressly or impliedly creates a liability, she is taken to have charged that estate with the satisfaction thereof, and the appropriate tribunal for the remedy is a court of equity.

For the appellees it has been strenuously urged that Mrs. Barratta made no engagement to answer for any liability to Salamone which she might incur in her undertaking to improve her lot. Expressly she did not, though she did notify him of her determination to improve her lot. But when she embarked on that enterprise, she impliedly engaged to do the duty which the law imposed on her in such a case, namely-to use due care and skill, and to answer for all liability resulting from her default. Had she been sui juris, there could have been no question as to the implied engagement, and her liability for the injury to Salamone's property, and her amenability therefor at law. In equity, however, quoad her separate estate, she is sui juris. By her default in not using due care and skill in improving her separate estate, she impliedly charged that estate with her liability, and that estate may be pursued in equity for the satisfaction of that liability.

We are, therefore, of opinion that the decree of the chancery court of the city of Richmond, dismissing the bill of the appellant, is erroneous, and must be reversed and annulled, with costs to the appellant, and a decree entered here providing for the payment to the appellant of the sum of $500, the amount of his damage as ascertained by the commissioner in his report, with interest thereon from the 30th of August, 1880, until paid,

Opinion.

out of the $1,000, part of the proceeds of sale of the trust property, which was directed by the decree of the court below, in the case of Marable & Dansey, to be retained to satisfy this claim in the event of an ultimate decision in favor of Salamone.

HINTON J., dissented.

DECREE REVERSED.

Syllabus.

Richmond.

BATCHELDER AND ALS. V. WHITE.

JANUARY 15th, 1885.

1. PRACTICE IN CHANCERY-Multifariousness.-Bill in equity against a number of distinct alienees of separate parcels of land, to set aside the several alienations as fraudulent and void, is not multifarious, though there be no charge of confederacy. The several defendants have one common interest centering in the point in issue, which is the alleged fraud in the disposition of the 'debtor's property. Almond v. Wilson, 75 Va. 643. Hill v. Hill, 79 Va. 592.

2. IDEM-Foreign attachment-Bill demurrable-When.-Neither under section 2, chapter 175, nor under section 11, chapter 148, Code 1873, can “a suit, in the nature of a foreign attachment," be maintained unless the claim asserted be actually due. Unless the bill avers that a debt is due the plaintiff from one who is non-resident of this State, and who has estate and effects in this State, it is demurrable. Cirode v. Buchanan, 22 Gratt. 216

3. ALTERATION OF INSTRUMENT-Case at bar.-A material alteration of a bond or note after its execution, when intentionally made by one hav ing an interest in it, and without the consent of the party bound by it, invalidates the instrument as to such party. Dobyns v. Rawley, 76 Va. 544 .

Q. borrowed of W. $1,000, upon his note endorsed by S. Afterwards, without the consent or knowledge of S., but with the knowledge and consent of W., the note was altered by Q., and raised to $1,500, as security for an additional $500, which thereupon W. lent Q. HELD:

The alteration invalidated the note entirely as to S.

4. FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCES-Innocent purchaser.-It is not enough that the purpose of the grantor be fraudulent. Knowledge of such purpose must be clearly brought home to the alienee. Where the latter has denied such knowledge on oath, it cannot be held that his denial is overthrown by mere circumstances of suspicion adduced against him.

Statement-Opinion.

Appeal from decree of corporation court of Norfolk city, entered 21st October, 1882, in a certain suit in equity wherein Elizabeth White was plaintiff, and the appellants, B. F. Batchelder and J. R. Spruill, E. M. Quimby, and two others, were defendants.

Opinion states the case.

Edgar Allan and Ed. Spalding, for the appellants.

Burroughs & Bro, and Godwin & Martin, for the appellees.

HINTON, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was instituted by the plaintiff, Elizabeth White, to recover the sum of $3,000, claimed to have been loaned by her to E. M. Quimby, one of the defendants, and to have three certain deeds of conveyance made by said Quimby to different parties, each conveying different property, and executed at dif ferent times, set aside and declared void as to the creditors of said Quimby, and the property thereby conveyed subjected to the payment of said Quimby's debts; and also to recover from J. R. Spruill, as endorser of a note for $1,000, made by said Quimby to the plaintiff, that amount on account of said endorsement, it being parcel of the sum above mentioned.

It appears by the record that Quimby executed a note for $1,000, which was dated May 9th, 1880, endorsed by the said Spruill, made payable to the order of the plaintiff, and delivered by Quimby to the plaintiff, on which, at the time of the delivery, she loaned Quimby $1,000. Afterwards, and while this note was in the plaintiff's ownership and possession, Quimby, with the knowledge and consent of the plaintiff, but without the knowledge of Spruill, so changed the note as to make it express on its face that it was for the sum of $1,500; and, upon the strength of this alteration, Quimby received from the plaintiff the further sum of $500.

Opinion.

Subsequently, another note for the sum of $1,500, dated August 9th, 1880, was executed and delivered by Quimby to the plaintiff. Each of these notes was payable, by its terms, one year after date.

The first of these notes was destroyed or carried away by Quimby, who left the State on the 26th August, 1880; and a few days thereafter, and before the notes were due, this suit was instituted, and an attachment was sued out and levied on certain property conveyed by the deed from Quimby to B. F. Batchelder, one of the appellants. There was a demurrer to the bill; answers by all of the defendants denying the charge of fraud; and a motion to dismiss the attachment.

The court, however, overruled the demurrer, refused to dissolve the attachment, dismissed the bill as to all of the defendants except as to B. F. Batchelder and Spruill, and decreed that the conveyance from Quimby to B. F. Batchelder was fraudulent and void, and that the property thereby conveyed was liable for Quimby's debts, and that Spruill was liable to the extent of $1,000, the amount of the note endorsed by him.

The bill was not multifarious; for, as was said by this court in Almond v. Wilson, 75 Va. 623, it is common practice for a judgment creditor to unite in one bill any number of purchasers claiming different parcels of land by separate and distinet alienations. When the bill is against fraudulent alienees, the matter in litigation is the fraud charged in the management and disposition of the debtor's property, in which charge all of the defendants are interested, though in different degrees and proportions. In such a case, and the case at bar is of that character, the uniting of the alienees in the same suit imposes no hardship on them worthy of consideration in comparison with that which will be imposed upon the creditors if a dif ferent rule is adopted, and they are forced to pursue in a separate suit each person to whom the debtor may have conveyed any portion of his property in pursuance of his purpose to defraud his creditors. As to the alienees then, we think that, as VOL. LXXX-14

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