Booker v. Crocker

132 F. 7, 65 C.C.A. 627, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4325
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJuly 28, 1904
DocketNo. 2,020
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 132 F. 7 (Booker v. Crocker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Booker v. Crocker, 132 F. 7, 65 C.C.A. 627, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4325 (8th Cir. 1904).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

In this case the complainant below, John Lee Booker, has appealed from a decree in his favor which secures to him 6 4T/iooo per cent, of 200 acres of land near the city of Sioux Falls, in the state of South Dakota, upon condition that he pays to the defendant, Charles T. Crocker, $4,428.29 and interest within 60 days from the date of the decree. This decree also quiets the title to this land in the defendant if the complainant fails to make this payment.

On May 11, 1896, a mortgage was made upon this tract of land to secure the payment of 400 bonds of $1,000 each. On October 1, 1897, the defendant, Crocker, loaned to the mortgagor $48,168.69, and took its note secured by 145 of these bonds. The bonds were afterwards sold under the pledge, and purchased by him for about 25 per cent, of their par value. He acquired other bonds, some at this rate and perhaps others at different rates, until he held bonds of the par value of $357,300. Booker, the complainant, purchased 23 bonds secured by this mortgage in the month of January, 1897, and paid for them about their par value. In this way each of these parties came to have bonds secured by the same mortgage after October 1,1897. Subsequent to this date Crocker purchased various liens upon the mortgaged property which were superior to the lien of the mortgage, and he paid taxes, premiums on insurance, and other expenses for the purpose of preserving and protecting the security for the bonds, and the complainant recovered the decree in this case upon the ground that there was such a fiduciary relation between him and the defendant that he was entitled to share in the benefits which Crocker secured by the purchase of the superior liens for the purpose of protecting their common security.

Community of interest in a common title or security implies a mutual obligation not to impair it. It creates such a relation of trust and confidence that it is inequitable to permit one of the parties in interest to do anything to the prejudice of others, and when one of them obtains superior titles or liens he holds them in trust for the benefit of all who share in the common title or security, and who, within a reasonable time after notice of his purchase, contribute their share of his necessary expenditures. The complainant and the defendant were co-cestuis que trust under the trust deed to the International Trust Company, which constitutes the mortgage. They were co-bondholders secured pro rata by the same mortgage upon the same property, and prior liens upon .or superior titles to this common property purchased by either vested in him in trust for both. Jackson v. Ludeling, 21 Wall. 616, 622, 22 L. Ed. 492; Lloyd v. Chesapeake, O. & S. W. R. Co. (C. C.) 65 Fed. 351, 357; Rothwell v. Dewees, 2 Black, 613, 619, 17 L. Ed. 309; Van Horne v. Fonda, 5 Johns. Ch. 388, 407; Moore v. Ware, 38 Me. 496, 498; Horton v. Maffitt, 14 Minn. 289, 292 (Gil. 216), 100 Am. Dec. 222; Funk v. McReynolds’ Adm’rs, 33 Ill. 481, 497; Gossom v. Donaldson, 18 B. Mon. 230, 238, 68 Am. Dec. 723. Neither this principle nor the general equity of the decree is challenged by either of the parties to this suit. The defendant has taken no cross-appeal, and has thereby conceded, for the purpose of the hearing in this court, that the parties were co-cestuis que trust under the mortgage when the defendant [9]*9purchased the prior liens, and that he took them in trust for his co-bondholders. Guarantee Co. of North America v. Phenix Ins. Co., 59 C. C. A. 376, 378, 379, 124 Fed. 170, 172, 173. The appellant admits the facts and the law upon which the decree is founded, but objects to certain minor details of it. We turn to the consideration of his objections.

Under the principle of equity to which reference has been made the complainant was required to pay his due proportion of all the moneys which the defendant had necessarily expended to protect and preserve the common security. On September 22,' 1898, he paid $3,850 for the lien by judgment of Pettigrew & Tate, and in July, 1898, he paid $5,600 for the lien by contract of the Fred W. Wolf Company. The decree conditions the recovery of the complainant with the repayment by him to the defendant of his proportionate share of the amounts which the latter expended in making these purchases. This requirement is specified as error because the parties made an agreement on July 9, 1901, which relates to this subject. That agreement was made under these circumstances: There was a mechanic’s lien upon 360 acres of land, 160 acres of which were covered by this mortgage, while 200 acres were free from it. That lien was anterior in time and superior in equity to the lien of the mortgage, and a judgment had been rendered upon it. On July 30, 1900, the 360 acres were sold under this judgment to the defendant, Crocker, in a single tract, for $36,357.50. A year was allowed for a redemption from this sale by the statutes of the state of South Dakota. As the end of this year was approaching, and on July 9, 1901, Crocker made a written agreement with the complainant that he would “hold the title to the two hundred (200) acres of land of the Northwestern Packing Company at Sioux Falls, S. D., together with the plant thereon, bid off by me at sale on foreclosure of mechanic’s lien, in trust for the said Booker and myself as bondholders under the bonds secured by the trust deed given to the International Trust Company of Boston by said packing company, the said Booker to have a right to his pro rata interest in said lien and any title to said property which may be acquired thereby upon the payment to me at any time before the right to redeem from the foreclosure of said trust deed shall expire of his pro rata share of the sum bid by me upon the sale upon the foreclosure of said mechanic’s lien, with interest thereon at the rate of seven per cent, per annum, the amount bid on such sale to be pro rated between us according to our respective holdings of the bonds secured by said trust deed.” The bill in this suit counted chiefly upon this agreement, and it was filed for the purpose of enforcing the trust declared by it. This declaration of trust or contract was assailed by the defendant on various grounds; among others, that it was unilateral, that it was without consideration, and that it contained no description of the lands to be affected by it. The court below held the contract invalid, refused to limit the payments required of the complainant to his share of the amount bid by the defendant at the sale under the mechanic’s lien, and conditioned his recovery by the payment of his share of all the expenditures necessarily made by Crocker to protect the common security. This was a just and equitable ruling, and it ought not to be disturbed on account of [10]*10the terms of this contract. Laying aside the other objections that it was without consideration and that it was unilaterál, it is sufficient to condemn it that it contained no definite description of the 200 acres, which, by its terms, Crocker agreed to hold in trust for himself and the complainant. The description in the agreement is of the “two hundred (200) acres of the Northwestern Packing Company at Sioux Falls, S. D., together with the plant thereon, bid off by me [Crocker] at sale on foreclosure of mechanic’s lien.” But the fact is that he bid off 360 acres in one lot at the sale, so that the description of the 200 acres which he bid off fails to point out what particular 200 acres of the 360 it was intended to describe. It reads that the land it refers to is the 200 acres on which the plant is situated.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
132 F. 7, 65 C.C.A. 627, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4325, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/booker-v-crocker-ca8-1904.