Ball v. Williams

93 N.W.2d 723, 250 Iowa 216, 1958 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 416
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedDecember 16, 1958
DocketNo. 49589
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 93 N.W.2d 723 (Ball v. Williams) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ball v. Williams, 93 N.W.2d 723, 250 Iowa 216, 1958 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 416 (iowa 1958).

Opinion

Linnan, J.

This controversy involves the question of the right of possession and the right to rents and profits following the foreclosure of a second mortgage covering a 280-acre farm in Jasper County wherein a receiver was appointed to take possession of the land and rent the same during the period of redemption.

Plaintiff-appellee filed his action asking for personal judgment against the appellant, Ward E. Williams, on two promissory notes and foreclosure of a real-estate mortgage securing the same and asking for the appointment of receiver. The mortgage contained the following receivership provision:

“It is further provided that in ease action is brought for foreclosure of this mortgage, the mortgagee is authorized to take immediate possession of said property and to rent the same and shall be liable to account to said mortgagors only for the net profits thereof, and for said purpose a receiver for said premises and rents and profits thereof may be appointed by the court or judge thereof.”

A hearing was had on the application for the appointment [219]*219of receiver prior to final decree, resulting in the appointment of a receiver for all of the land except the homestead forty-acres, with the direction that the receiver lease -the land to the appellant and wife, if they so desired, retaining jurisdiction as to the appointment of receiver for the homestead until after special execution sale. Pursuant thereto the receiver did lease this land to appellee for a term commencing May 7, 1957, and ending December 11, 1957. Thereafter on May 29, 1957, there was filed certain “Conclusions of Law” and a final decree of foreclosure. In the Conclusions of Law, the findings in the prior order of May 3, 1957, were confirmed and also contained the following statement: “that the mortgagors had consented that a receiver be appointed for the homestead at the time of the decree instead of waiting until after the foreclosure sale.”

The decree confirmed all of the provisions of the prior order and appointed the same receiver to take immediate possession of the homestead forty “from the date of the commencement of this action and pending the Sheriffs Sale and during the statutory year of redemption.” The decree further entered judgment against the mortgagor for the total sum of $27,091.15 and decreed foreclosure of the mortgage by sale at special execution in the customary manner. A lease was then made of the homestead forty for the same term as the balance of the land.

Prior to the commencement of plaintiff’s action, a prior mortgage held by the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company had been foreclosed and the land sold under special execution issued in that ease on December 11, 1956, and the land was bid by Poweshiek-Jasper Farm Service Company for the sum of $36,350, which purchaser held a lien junior to the first mortgage but superior to appellee’s second mortgage.

No special execution sale was held under appellee’s decree, but on August 16, 1957, appellee made a statutory redemption under chapter 628 of the 1954 Code of Iowa from the prior foreclosure by paying the. full amount due on the Sheriff’s Certificate of Sale, to wit: $38,159.58 to the Clerk of Court and by filing Affidavit of Redemption wherein appellee stated he was willing to credit on his second mortgage lien judgment in making redemption the sum of $22,000, leaving a deficiency of [220]*220$5902.86. No question is raised as to the sufficiency of the redemption proceedings.

■Subsequent thereto and on October 31, 1957, appellant filed “Motion to Terminate Receivership, Restore Possession, Rents and Profits to Ward E. Williams, Vacate Judgment and Decree and to Retax Costs.” A resistance thereto was filed and a hearing was had resulting in the overruling of the mortgage in its entirety. It is from this ruling that this appeal is taken.

Appellant’s motion is far too lengthy to be set out in full in this opinion, but boiled down to its basic essentials it is bottomed upon the fundamental proposition that when appellee made his statutory redemption instead of selling the land at special execution under his second mortgage, he abandoned and discontinued this action and that, therefore, there was no legal basis for the continuation of the receivership. In his motion appellant- asked that the personal judgment and decree of foreclosure be vacated and set aside, the receivership dismissed, that he be restored to possession, and all costs of the action be taxed to the appellee, and, in the alternative, that if the judgment and decree be not vacated the costs be retaxed against the appellee.

I. While the position of appellant in this case is most ingenious, it is ultratechnical, unsound in principle, and not such as makes any appeal to a court of equity. What appellant is in effect asking us to say is that when appellee made his statutory redemption and credited $22,000 on his judgment, it completely and fully extinguished his entire judgment the same as if he had in filing his affidavit of redemption stated he was willing to credit the full amount of his judgment, interest and costs in making redemption. This we are not prepared to do. Appellee in making redemption stated he was willing to credit the sum of $22,000 to the land -but no more. This exhausted the primary security but left $5902.86 of the judgment to be satisfied out of the rents and profits from the land.

It is a fundamental proposition of law too well known to require citation of authorities that a party litigant will not be required to go through useless formal procedure .for the protection of his rights. That is what appellant is asking here. If [221]*221appellee had proceeded with special execution, sale and had bid in the land for $22,000, he still would have had to make redemption from the first mortgage sale within the statutory period or completely lose all his rights to the primary security. He would have gained nothing and would have been burdened with the unnecessary expense of the second foreclosure sale. The deficiency was just as effectively established by the statutory redemption as it would have been by sale.

A good illustration of the general rule that equity will not require the doing of a useless thing is found in the ease of Gaskins v. Bonfils, 8 F. Supp. 832, where at page 837 the court said:

“The defendants further contend that the suit here is premature in that it must be preceded by a suit upon the judgment against the defendant in the jurisdiction where the creditors’ suit is brought. This is a correct statement of the law under ordinary circumstances. The exception is set forth in National Tube Works v. Ballou, 146 U. S. 517, 13 S. Ct. 165, 36 L. Ed. 1070, in that it may be made to appear that it is impossible to obtain a judgment in any court within the jurisdiction. It is frankly admitted by counsel that the Post or Star Company never qualified to do business in Colorado where this suit is brought, nor did it ever conduct business in such jurisdiction. The authorities are numerous that under such circumstances a legal service could not be secured in a foreign district by an attempted service upon any officer or director of the corporation. So that the institution of such a suit would have been a vain thing and equity will not require it.”

To sustain appellee’s contention would render nugatory the provisions of Code section 628.19', which provides as follows: “628.19 Credit on lien.

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93 N.W.2d 723, 250 Iowa 216, 1958 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 416, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ball-v-williams-iowa-1958.