United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Stephenson v. Kirtley, 269 U.S. 163 (1925)

Stephenson v. Kirtley

No. 58

Submitted October 16, 1925

Decided November 16, 1925

269 U.S. 163

Syllabus

1. An attachment affidavit stating generally the nature of the plaintiff's claim and setting forth, with reasonable certainty and the particularity of fact necessary to show a cause of action, the unpaid judgments upon which the claim was based, held a sufficient compliance with the requirement of the West Virginia Code that such affidavit state "the nature of the plaintiff's claim." P. 269 U. S. 166.

2. Where a writ of attachment has been issued and levied, the preliminary affidavit has served its purpose, and even though it be so defective that an appellate court might find in it sufficient error to reverse the judgment, this does not deprive the court of the jurisdiction acquired by the levy of the writ. Id.

3. Recitals in a decree of sale in a creditors suit showing that the court acted on satisfactory evidence in adjudging that the deeds in question were made to defraud creditors import verity, and cannot be drawn in question in a collateral attack by a party who was served only by publication and did not appear and who alleges that the court (under the West Virginia Code) could make no valid decree because no proof of fraud was offered. Id.

4. In such a suit, where the court has acquired jurisdiction by attachment and has entered a decree nisi on an order of publication, the allegations of the complaint that the deeds in question were fraudulent may be sustained by the default as well as by proof, and failure to hear proof before adjudging them fraudulent and ordering a sale is neither beyond the court's jurisdiction nor a denial of due process. Id.

5. Upon an appeal from a decree dismissing on motion a bill to set aside a judgment, this Court, finding the judgment valid against the objections made in the bill, will not consider other matters relating to it which are urged in the briefs. P. 269 U. S. 167.

Affirmed.

Appeal from a decree of the district court dismissing the bill, on motion, in a suit to annul proceedings of a West Virginia court whereby deeds, made by one of the

Page 269 U. S. 164

appellants to the others, were set aside as in fraud of creditors, and the property sold to satisfy judgment debts.