Bolend v. Rogers

1935 OK 553, 45 P.2d 1069, 173 Okla. 91, 1935 Okla. LEXIS 543
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedMay 21, 1935
DocketNo. 25367.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 1935 OK 553 (Bolend v. Rogers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bolend v. Rogers, 1935 OK 553, 45 P.2d 1069, 173 Okla. 91, 1935 Okla. LEXIS 543 (Okla. 1935).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

In this action plaintiff in error sought to enjoin the defendant in error, as sheriff of Oklahoma county, from proceeding with the sale under execution of a. five-acre tract of land. A restraining order was issued. Upon final hearing, the issues were found generally for the defendant, and judgment was rendered dissolving ithe restraining order and denying a permanent injunction. The plaintiff below appealed.

The record before us discloses that in October, 1927, one T. R. Upshaw, having contracted to purchase a 20-acre tract from one Bourne, agreed with Dr. Bolend, the plaintiff in this cause, to sell him five acres therein. The vendor gave a written memorandum of the sale- in the form of a letter signed by him, which, after specifically describing the five acres sold and acknowledging receipt of a part of the purchase price, provided:

“Total purchase price to be $1,'#25, payable in accordance with my purchase of the 20 acres including the above, copy of such contract filed with the register of deeds of Oklahoma county; your payments to be $400 January 2, 1928, and $125 each succeeding six months until paid.
“It is also understood by mutual agreement that we can change your purchase from this description to any other five acres in the tract.”

About the same time (the exact date is not shown), in order to secure the unpaid part of the purchase price for the 20 acres purchased by him, Upshaw gave a mortgage to Bourne upon 15 of the 20 acres, which mortgage covered the five acres specifically described in the memorandum of sale to Dr. Bolend. In January, 1931, suit was commenced by Bourne against Upshaw for the foreclosure of this mortgage, and Dr. Bolend was made a party defendant — no money judgment being sought against him, but for the purpose of foreclosing any interest he had in the land covered by the mortgage. An answer was filed in that action on behalf of Dr. Bolend, by his attorneys, in which it was alleged that he was “entitled to a five-acre interest in and to the property described in said petition, and is entitled to have his five acres set aside to him free and clear of all liens or incumbrances of any nature whatsoever,” and prayed, “that he have an order directing the court to set aside five acres from the property described in plaintiff’s petition to this answering defendant and that titiey therein be quieted.”

On September 8, 1931, a judgment was rendered in the foreclosure action for the plaintiff and against Upshaw for the sum of $4,228.31, with interest, attorney fees and costs, and a foreclosure of the mortgage was decreed, barring and foreclosing all rights and interests which the defendant Bolend, as well as the defendant Upshaw, might have in the land involved in that action. On April 15, 1932, the mortgaged property was sold pursuant to the decree of foreclosure, and the proceeds credited upon the judgment, leaving a balance unpaid thereon, alleged by the plaintiff below to be $1,266.85, with interest. Thereafter Bourne caused an execution to be issued upon the judgment for the deficiency, which, on May 27, 1932, was levied by the defendant in this action upon the five-acre tract which was not embraced within the mortgage, but which was 'a part of the 20 acres originally purchased by Upshaw from Bourne.

The plaintiff claims that prior to the judgment entered in the foreclosure action, an *92 oral agreement was made between him and Upshaw, whereby the five acres levied upon by the sheriff and involved in this case were substituted for the five acres specifically described in the memorandum of sale given by Upshaw to Dr. Bolend.

The defendant, besides other defenses, denied that plaintiff was the owner of the property either on or before the date of the levy of the execution.

With regard to the alleged oral agreement, Upshaw testified by deposition that this ■agreement was made shortly before he left Oklahoma to reside in Mississippi, on November 14, 1930. He swore;

“When I bought the land, I cleared five acres and gave a mortgage on 15 and promised to sell Bex the five acres. I was going to build a house on one five acres, and then when I got mixed up and couldn’t pay it out, Bex called me up one night and wanted to know how he was going to get his land.
“Bex called me up one night and wanted to know how he was going to get his land if they took the 15 acres on which I had given the mortgage and in which the five acres which I was selling him was included. He said ‘let’s get a lawyer and get it fixed up.’ I said it wasn’t necessary to get a lawyer, I would give him a deed to the five acres that were clear any time he wanted it.”

He further testified that no demand was made by Bolend upon him for a deed until about June 23, 1932, when a quitclaim deed was executed by him, conveying the land to Bolend.

Plaintiff testified that in the summer or spring of 1930, it was decided to “change from the description in the letter to the other piece of land.” On cross-examination, he testified that he had told one of the attorneys for the mortgagee, prior to the foreclosure ;

“That I was paying Upshaw this money and I had paid mine up to date and he hadn’t paid his, and therefore I had some interest in this and I considered I practically owned mine and by agreement with Eoger Upshaw that he had that five acres clear and he said ‘that five acres will protect you, and if they take the other I will deed the five acres to you’; that was then understanding that the five acres he had clear would be given to me.”

He further admitted that on several occasions he called upon Mr. Gibbens, who was handling the note and mortgage for Bourne before the foreclosure proceedings were filed; he admitted that he procured, through Mr. Gibbens, a delay of the foreclosure for the purpose of trying to do something to save his interest in the 15 acres. He did not know whether his attorney, Mr. Foster, had filed an answer for him in that cause, but did know that the case went to judgment, and the property was advertised for sale. He admitted that he never asked for a deed from Upshaw for the five-acre tract until after the judgment in the foreclosure proceedings. Mr. Gib-bens, one of the attorneys for the plaintiff in the foreclosure proceeding, testified that on several occasions plaintiff, Bolend, came to his office, and he talked to him once or twice over the phone while witness was handling the matter. Pie said that Dr. Bolend did not at any time advise him that he was claiming any interest in the five-acre tract not included in the mortgage, but that he at all times claimed a five-acre interest in the land embraced in the mortgage. It-was Bolend’s plan, in the beginning, according to this witness, to purchase the mortgage to protect his interest, and witness held up the foreclosure proceedings in order that he might have time to raise the money for that purpose. After the suit was instituted Bolend advised witness that he had endeavored to protect himself and would do so at the time of the sheriff’s sale; that he felt it was bad policy to buy the: mortgage prior to that time on account of his friendship for Upshaw. Most of these-conversations were in the fall of 1930, but witness stated that he had conversations with Bolend up to the time he brought the suit.

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Related

Williams v. Downing
1939 OK 417 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1939)
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1936 OK 814 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1936)
Beck v. Day
1936 OK 571 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1936)

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Bluebook (online)
1935 OK 553, 45 P.2d 1069, 173 Okla. 91, 1935 Okla. LEXIS 543, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bolend-v-rogers-okla-1935.