Bressler v. Martin

34 Ill. App. 122, 1889 Ill. App. LEXIS 217
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedDecember 16, 1889
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 34 Ill. App. 122 (Bressler v. Martin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bressler v. Martin, 34 Ill. App. 122, 1889 Ill. App. LEXIS 217 (Ill. Ct. App. 1889).

Opinions

Lacey, J.

The appellee, Adam Smith, on the 30th of August, 1887, began a suit to foreclose a mortgage of May, 1881, given by Peter Bressler and wife to Adam Smith, conveying all the lands in the mortgages, which may be hereafter described, to secure $4,627.91, the balance of which, that remained unsatisfied, having been re-assigned to the said complainant, Adam Smith (it having once been assigned to Henry Smith), making, in this foreclosure suit, the appellants and others, and appellee John Martin, parties respondent. To this bill John Martin answered, and then filed his cross-bill, making the other respondents in the court below, as well as Adam Smith, parties defendant. Appellee Martin sought by this cross-bill to procure the revival of a certain judgment which he had procured in the Circuit Court of Whiteside County for $3,395 and costs, on March 15, 1883, against Peter Bressler, which had been satisfied in part by a sale by the sheriff, on execution, of 220 acres of land of the latter, to the amount of $2,035, on July 14, 1883, and the balance satisfied by the sale of other real estate not involved in this controversy. The court below decreed satisfaction to be set aside, and the judgment, so far as the amount bid on the above named land, should be revived, and execution issue thereon, and the lands of appellant Frank Bressler sold to satisfy the same. The cross-bill also seeks to set aside the deed from. Peter Bressler and wife to his son, Frank S. Bressler, for the real estate involved herein of date of July 1, 1888, and subject it to the satisfaction of the judgment thus revived. The mortgage in this case sought to be foreclosed by Adam Smith was a prior lien to the judgment of appellee Martin, but appellee Smith -was not in any way contesting the right of appellee Martin to the relief he seeks here, nor was the latter contesting the priority of Smith’s mortgage.

We will first notice the defense set up by appellants to the relief sought by appellee Martin in his cross-bill. It appears from the evidence and the pleadings in the case that prior to the Smith mortgage, and also long prior to the date of the recovery of appellee Martin’s judgment, to wit, March 1, 1881, Peter Bressler had mortgaged the land in question in this suit, as well as the 220 acres afterward deeded to Dins-moor, in all 1,040 acres, which will be mentioned hereafter, by ihree separate mortgages, to the .¿Etna Life Insurance Company, to secure a large sum of money. James Dinsmoor, on March 7,1883, had purchased the 220 acre tract of land from Peter Bressler for the sum of §7,700. The money so agreed to be paid to Bressler for the 220 acre tract of land was, by agreement between Dinsmoor and Peter Bressler, to be applied in satisfaction of the .¿Etna mortgage so far as it would go, which covered this land, with others, which was done. The money was sufficient to procure the release of the .¿Etna mortgage on the land so purchased and a considerable sum beside, but the deed from Peter Bressler to James Dins-moor was'not placed upon record till March 23, 1883, and the release of the .¿Etna Company not till March 27, 1883, leaving the appellee’s judgment a few days in priority in date to the record of the deed and the release. Thereupon appellee Martin, thinking he saw an opportunity, by reason of the priority of his judgment to the record of Dinsmoor’s deed and by reason of the release of said mortgage, to make his judgment, caused execution to issue thereon April 3, 1883, and on June 13th said execution was levied on the land purchased by Dinsmoor, and on the 14th of July of the same year the sheriff sold the land to Martin for §2,035, and issued to him a certificate of purchase and returned the execution satisfied.

At the December term, 1883, Peter Bressler moved the court to set aside the levy and sale of said Martin to the end that Peter Brcssler’s interest in the land other than that sold to Dinsmoor, being about 820 acres, might be first sold; appellee Martin resisted the motion and the court refused to grant it. On the 20th November, 1883, the day on which the second of the Smith notes became due, Henry Smith, the assignee of the notes, filed a bill to foreclose them as to the first $1,500 note falling due, making Peter Bressler and Adam Smith, John Martin (appellee) and James Dinsmoor respondents. Peter Bressler, appellee Martin arid James Dinsmoor answered, and afterward James Dinsmoor filed his cross and amended cross-bill against Henry and Adam Smith and appellee Martin, setting up the facts in reference to his purchase of the 220 acres of land from Peter Bressler and asking to be subrogated to all the rights of the JEtna Life Ins. Co. under its said mortgage to the said 220 acres; that Martin might be decreed to hold subject to the rights of Dinsmoor so subrogated as aforesaid and that his certificate of purchase might be canceled. The court upon hearing decreed the foreclosure of the Smith mortgage in that suit ($1,633.60 being due) and subrogated Dinsmoor to the full amount of $7,700 paid by him for the land, to all the rights of the JEtna mortgage as against Smith and against appellee Martin, and also vacated the sheriff’s sale and appellee Martin’s certificate of purchase. Upon appeal by Smith and Martin to the Appellate Court the decree of the Circuit Court was modified as to amount allowed to be subrogated, and upon further appeal to Supreme Court the amount was further changed and subrogation allowed to the extent of $5,658.32, and the Circuit Court directed to enter a decree in accordance with the opinion. See, 16 Ill. App. 115; Smith v. Dinsmoor, 119 Ill. 656. On the 20th day of December, 1887, in accordance with the direction of the Supreme Court, the Circuit Court rendered the decree as ordered, annulling the sale and certificate of purchase of appellee. On February 2,1883, the Dinsmoor 220 acres were sold under decree to James Dinsmoor for $7,316.78, being in full of his debt, interest and costs, and being nearly, if not quite, the full value of the land. The appellants insist that the judgment of the court on the motion by Peter Bressler to set aside the sale is a bar to the relief asked by the cross-bill herein, and besides, as the judgment was not revived by the decree of the court December 20, 1887, in case of Smith et al. v. Dinsmoor, on remanding order from the Supreme Court, the appellee Martin is now estopped to ask any further relief; that he can not now be heard to complain that his judgment is not revived. We can not agree with either of these propositions. In regard to the first point we are of opinion that it is not an estoppel for the following reasons: the causes for which the levy and sale were finally set aside were not urged in the motion of Peter Bressler to set aside the sale, and he and the appellee Martin were the only proper parties to such motion as to the record, and the equities urged by Dinsmoor in his cross-bill for setting aside the sale did not exist in favor of Peter Bressler. He was indifferent. It would be improper to admit suggestions upon the hearing of that motion in regard to the equitable rights of third parties. In order to give it—the court—jurisdiction of such matters, equity must be resorted to.

By the decree of the Circuit Court of December 20, 1887, referred to, made in the case of Smith v. Dinsmoor on the cross-bill of Dinsmoor against Martin, the sale and certificate of purchase of Martin was wholly set aside and nullified, and this in accordance with the mandate of the Supreme Court. The court says, when commenting on that subject in its opinion: “ It was not error for the Circuit Court to cancel by its decree the certificate of purchase of the 220 acres issued by the sheriff to Martin.

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Bluebook (online)
34 Ill. App. 122, 1889 Ill. App. LEXIS 217, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bressler-v-martin-illappct-1889.