Baker v. Connecticut General Life Ins.

18 So. 2d 438, 196 Miss. 701, 1944 Miss. LEXIS 251
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJune 5, 1944
DocketNo. 35573.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 18 So. 2d 438 (Baker v. Connecticut General Life Ins.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baker v. Connecticut General Life Ins., 18 So. 2d 438, 196 Miss. 701, 1944 Miss. LEXIS 251 (Mich. 1944).

Opinion

Smith, C. J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

In January, 1927, the appellant executed a deed of trust on land to F. H. C'arlile, as trustee, to seciure the. payment of- a loan of money by Bolton Smith & Company to the appellant of $16,000. This debt was evidenced by promissory notes of varying amounts, the first of which wa,s due on January 1,1928, and one or two of them were due on January first of each year thereafter, until January 1, 1937, when the last of the notes became due.

*707 The notes were payable to Bolton Smith & Company, referred to in the deed of trust, and in the appellant’s bill of complaint, as. a commercial firm. Bolton Smith & Company was a partnership, composed of Bolton Smith and C. F. Williams. They styled themselves “mortgage brokers,” and were engaged in lending money secured by deeds of trust on land, and selling the notes and assigning the deeds of trust securing them to other parties.. The money necessary for the operation of this business was furnished by Smith, Williams’ contribution being his time and services. The business was managed by" Williams, and the sale and assignment of promissory notes acquired by the firm, and of the deeds of trust securing them, were made by Williams. The notes and deed of trust here executed by the appellant were assigned to the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company by Williams, acting for and in the name of Bolton Smith & Company. Under an agreement then made, when the notes should become due they would be forwarded by the Insurance Company to Bolton Smith & Company for collection; who, after collecting the notes, should retain a small part of the interest due thereon, and remit the remainder to the Insurance Company.

In 1931 two of these notes were in the possession of Bolton Smith & Company for collection and remittance to the Insurance Company; and the appellant having failed to pay them, and Carlile, the trustee in the deed of trust, being dead, the Insurance Company appointed P. B. Bancroft as substituted trustee in the deed of trust, who advertised and sold the land under the deed of trust on January 22, 1932, to the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, which immediately entered into the possession thereof. Thereafter, that Company sold the land to Sayle and Harrison, Harrison’s heirs selling his portion thereof to Trout.

In December, 1941, the appellant exhibited an original bill of complaint against the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Sayle and Trout, alleging that the *708 sale by Bancroft, trustee, to the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company under the trust deed executed by the appellant to Bolton Smith & Company was void, and prayed for a cancellation thereof, and.of the deeds executed thereto by the Insurance Company, and for an accounting for rent on the land. The case was tried on bill, answer and proof, resulting in a decree dismissing the appellant’s bill of complaint.

The ground of the appellant’s complaint is that the appointment by the Insurance Company of Bancroft as substituted trustee in this deed of trust is void, and, though the Insurance Company may have had the right to proceed, in a court of equity for the foreclosure of that deed of trust, it received no title to the land under the sale to it by Bancroft.

In support of this complaint the appellant says that the assignment by Williams, acting for and in the name of Bolton Smith & Company, of these notes and this deed-of trust to the Insurance Company was ineffective to vest it with title thereto, for the reason that the partnership of Bolton Smith & Company was not a commercial partnership, and Williams is not shown to have been vested by the partnership agreement with power to act in partnership matters without the concurrence of Smith; and if mistaken in this, the assignment of the deed of trust on this land was an assignment or conveyance of land, and that one partner alone cannot convey land owned by a partnership, or rather, by the individual members thereof for partnership purposes.

We will leave out of view that (1) Williams was the managing partner of Bolton Smith & Company; (2) the property of that firm here sold to the Insurance Company was -negotiable instruments, payable to the firm; (3) the sale by Williams of these promissory notes due his firm was in accordance with the firm’s usual custom; (4) the question of whether Bolton Smith & Company was a commercial partnership; and (5) the claim of Sayle and Trout that they were bona fide purchasers of the laud *709 for value without notice of the appellant’s claim of a defect in the title of the Insurance Company thereto.

The sale of promissory notes secured by deeds of trust acquired and owned by Bolton Smith & Company, and the assignment to the purchasers thereof of the deeds of trust securing, them, were within the scope of that partnership business; and therefore whether Bolton Smith & Company was a commercial partnership or not is of no consequence, for the reason that one partner has the right to act for, and bind, all members of his partnership as to matters within the scope of the partnership business. Heirn v. McCaughan, 32 Miss. 17, 66 Am. Dec. 588; Faler v. Jordan, 44 Miss. 283; Davis v. Richardson & May, 45 Miss. 499, 7 Am. Rep. 732; Vaiden v. Hawkins (Miss.), 6 So. 227; 47 C. J. 830, 40 Am. Jur., Partnership, Sec. 137.

But it is said by counsel for the appellant that the execution of this deed of trust to Bolton Smith & Company conveyed to the partnership, or to Bolton Smith for its use and benefit, an interest in the land described therein, and that one member of a partnership cannot convey the partnership’s land without express authority from all of the members thereof so to do.

The beneficiary in a deed of trust of the character of the one here in question is not vested with the title to the land described therein. He has no estate in the land, and cannot convey it to another; he has an interest in it only to the extent that he can cause the trustee in the deed of trust to sell the land and apply its proceeds to the payment of the secured debt. Buckley v. Daley, 45 Miss. 338; Freeman v. Cunningham, 57 Miss. 67; Beckett v. Dean, 57 Miss. 232; Adams v. Colonial & U. S. Mortgage Co., 82 Miss. 263, 34 So. 482, 17 L. R. A. (N. S.), 138, 100 Am. St. Rep. 633; Compare Frank et al. v. Colonial & United States Mortgage Co. et al., 86 Miss. 103, 38 So. 340, 70 L. R. A. 135, 4 Ann. Cas. 54, relied on by counsel for appellant.

The deed of trust provides that; “Should the trustee named herein die, . . . the party of the third part *710 (Btolton Smith. & Company)' or the legal holders of a majority of the unpaid indebtedness hereby secured may . . . appoint a substituted trustee, who shall be clothed with all his powers. ’ ’ Consequently, if the Connecticut General Insurance Company was the legal holder of the unpaid notes secured by the deed of trust, it had the right, under the express language thereof, to appoint a substituted trustee.

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Bluebook (online)
18 So. 2d 438, 196 Miss. 701, 1944 Miss. LEXIS 251, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baker-v-connecticut-general-life-ins-miss-1944.