Ascension Nat. Farm Loan Ass'n v. Whitney Nat. Bank of New Orleans

198 So. 409
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 9, 1940
DocketNo. 2152.
StatusPublished

This text of 198 So. 409 (Ascension Nat. Farm Loan Ass'n v. Whitney Nat. Bank of New Orleans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ascension Nat. Farm Loan Ass'n v. Whitney Nat. Bank of New Orleans, 198 So. 409 (La. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

OTT, Judge.

In 1923, Mrs. Mary Altemus Shaffer secured a farm loan on her plantation in Ascension Parish for the sum of $20,000, which loan was to be repaid in annual installments in accordance with the Federal Farm Loan Act, Title 12 U.S.C.A., Subchapter 1, Section 641 et seq. Mrs. Shaffer secured this loan from the land bank through the Ascension National Farm Loan Association, and ais is required by 12 U.S.C.A. § 733, she paid for and secured 200 shares of stock at $5 per share in this Farm Loan Association (hereafter called the association). The stock was issued in her name and was held by the association as collateral security on the loan. This suit involves a controversy between the husband of Mrs. Shaffer, now deceased, who is claiming the proceeds of the stock as her universal legatee, and the Whitney National Bank which claims the proceeds of the stock as the transferee of the mortgaged property.

Some of the transactions hereafter mentioned were with the Whitney Central Trust & Savings Bank and the Whitney Trust & Savings Bank, but as it is conceded that the Whitney National Bank has acquired all the rights of these other named banks, we will refer to this bank for brevity as the Whitney Bank.

Under the provisions of the Farm Loan Act and the regulations issued in pursuance thereof, a borrower is required to purchase in the local farm loan association of which he becomes a member $5 worth of stock for each $100 of the loan secured. This stock is pledged to and held by the local association which in turn is required *410 to purchase a like amount of stock in the federal land bank which actually makes the loan. The local farm loan association is required to pledge and deliver to the said land bank this stock as additional security for the loan along with the note and mortgage of the borrower, and the local association is required to endorse .the loan of the borrower as additional security. . If the borrower pays off his mortgage and if the local association has no other defaulted obligations of its borrowers whose paper it has endorsed for the land bank, the bank will then redeem in cash the stock in the bank which the association was required to purchase and pledge as further security on the mortgage of the borrower and the endorsement of the loan by the association. In turn, the local association will redeem its own stock and return to the borrower the par value thereof. If any dividends are declared on the stock of the local association during the time it is held by the association as security, these dividends are paid to the borrower as the owner of the stock. The land bank does not hold as pledged security to it for the loan the stock of the borrower in the local association — this stock is held by the local association as security to it on account of its endorsement of the loans made to its borrowing members.

If any of the loans of the borrowing members are in default, or if the land bank sustains a loss on any of the loans made to the members of the local association, the land bank retains the stock of the bank which the local association is required to purchase from the bank and pledge to it when eadi loan is. made to a member of the local association. In other words, to the extent that each borrowing member is required to purchase S per cent, of stock in the local association based on the loan secured, the borrower stands security to the bank for the loan advanced by the bank to each member of the local association.

So when Mrs. Shaffer obtained the loan from the bank, she was the owner of the $1,000 worth of stock in the Ascension National Farm Loan Association issued in her name but held by this association (not the land bank) to secure the association on its endorsement of her loan to the bank as well as the endorsement of the loans of the other members of this association to the bank, and the bank held as additional security from the local association besides the mortgage and endorsement of the association, $1,000 worth of its own stock purchased by the association and pledged to the bank.

In'1925, Mrs. Shaffer executed a second mortgage on her plantation to the Whitney Bank to secure a loan of something over $9,000. Being in default on her payments to the land bank, in 1926, Mrs. Shaffer conveyed the plantation to the Whitney Bank for a recited consideration of $10,728.63, consisting of $1,000 paid to her in cash by the Whitney Bank and the remainder consisting in the balance due that bank on the second mortgage arid certain taxes paid by it on the plantation. A clause was put in the deed stating specifically that the Whitney Bank did not assume the payment of the balance due on the farm loan, and the following clause was put in the deed: “The vendor, however does hereby declare that she does assign and transfer as a part of the property herein sold any and all claims that she may have against said Federal Farm Loan Bank, or the Farm Loan Association, through which said loan was made, for any amounts due her by said association, or held by said association and creditable upon said indebtedness., said vendor hereby subrogating said Whitney Central Trust and Savings Bank to any and all rights that she may have against said Federal Farm Loan Bank, or said Farm Loan Association.”

While the Whitney Bank did not assume the payment of this farm loan, as a matter of fact it continued to pay the installments when they came due, and in 1938 paid the entire balance due on this farm loan, secured the note and -had the mortgage cancelled. The Whitney Bank then made demand on the land bank and the local association for the $1,000 which had accrued to the local association for the redemption of the stock held by it in Mrs. Shaffer’s name. In the meantime, Mrs. Shaffer had died, and her husband, as her instituted heir, also claimed the $1,000.

The association deposited the amount in court and interpleaded the Whitney Bank and Shaffer. After a hearing, the trial court decided • that Shaffer was entitled to the amount and rendered judgment ordering the amount to be paid to him. The Whitney Bank has appealed.

The Whitney Bank claims the proceeds of this stock on two grounds: (1) on account of the transfer and assignment *411 made to it by Mrs. Shaffer under the clause quoted above; (2) and by reason of sub-rogation to the rights and privileges of the mortgage creditor — the land bank — under Article 2161 of the Civil Code. We will discuss each of these claims .in the order stated.

The stock of Mrs. Shaffer .was never transferred to the Whitney Bank. In fact, this stock could not be transferred under the farm loan act unless the Whitney Bank had assumed the mortgage on the property and had become a member of the Ascension National Farm Loan Association. The bank concedes that the stock was never transferred to it, but it claims that under the clause in the deed above quoted, it is entitled to the proceeds of this stock as it acquired all the claims and rights that Mrs. Shaffer had against either the land bank or the local association. The Whitney Bank not only did not have this stock transferred to it, but when, in September, 1937, the association wrote the bank sending a form for the borrower to sign transferring the stock, the bank replied that it would not be interested in having this stock transferred to it. So it is obvious that a short time before the Whitney Bank made the last payment on the farm loan, it claimed no ownership of the stock.

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Bluebook (online)
198 So. 409, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ascension-nat-farm-loan-assn-v-whitney-nat-bank-of-new-orleans-lactapp-1940.