Bronner v. Loomis

24 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 439
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedApril 15, 1879
StatusPublished

This text of 24 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 439 (Bronner v. Loomis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bronner v. Loomis, 24 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 439 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1879).

Opinion

Talcott, P. J. :

This is an appeal from an order made by Mr. Justice Mtjllin at the Oswego Special Term, setting aside an order made in this case on the 27th of March, 1877, as irregular, except as against a mortgage of $1,000, dated January 24, 1877, owned by the Rome Savings Bank. The appeal is only from that part of the order which allows the order to stand, so far as the mortgage to the Rome Savings Bank is concerned.

The facts, so far as necessary to be considered, are as follows : The plaintiffs Bronners, on the 12th day of October, 1874, recovered a judgment against Martha A. Loomis in this court on the report of a referee for $466.55. The place of trial of the said action was the county of Onondaga. On or about the 20th of October, 1874, the defendant Loomis appealed from that judgment to the General Term. Upon such appeal the defendant gave security in the usual form to stay the proceedings in the action, signed by herself and two sureties, each of which sureties justified in the sum of $1,000. The Rome Savings Bank already held a mortgage on certain real estate in the county of Oneida, executed to it by the said Martha A. Loomis for $3,000, and in January, 1877, she applied to the trustees of the said savings bank for a further loan of $1,000 to be secured by her bond and a further mortgage of the same premises embraced in the $3,000 mortgage. On examining the certificate of title to the said real estate two other incumbrances subsequent to the $3,000 mortgage were discovered, namely, a mortgage to Edward S. Brayton for $400, covering a portion of said premises, and also the said judgment in favor of the Bronners. And the said Martha A. Loomis was informed by the secretary of the said savings bank, that both of the said incumbrances must be canceled of record before the said further loan of $1,000 could be made on said real estate. And an arrangement was then made between said Martha A. Loomis and the said savings bank, by which the savings bank was authorized to pay out of the said $1,000 the amount necessary to pay the Brayton mortgage. And Mrs. Loomis informing the savings bank that the judgment had been appealed from and duly secured on appeal, she agreed that she would procure the necessary order of the court exempting the lands — 182 acres embraced in the [441]*441$3,000 mortgage, from the lien and operation of the said judgment, and in April, 1877, the secretary of the savings bank was informed that the necessary order had been obtained for the purpose of exempting such lands, and ivas furnished with a copy of the order of this court, made at a Special Term held at the court house in Nome in and for Oneida county, on the 27th day of March, 1877, whereupon the savings bank advanced the money and paid up the Brayton mortgage, and paid over the balance of the $1,000 to Mrs. Loomis and took to secure the repayment thereof the bond and mortgage in question.

The judgment in favor of the Bronners was affirmed on the appeal. The order of the 27th of March, 1877, which was made by Mr. Justice Hardin, then holding the Oneida Special Term, was made by default, and exempted the property embraced in the mortgage from the lien of the said judgment, and ivas made upon proof of the service of notice of said motion upon the attorneys for the plaintiff, and also upon the sureties in the undertaking on appeal. The order appealed from was made upon a motion in behalf of the plaintiffs, the Bronners to vacate and sot aside the order of the 27th of March, 1877, for irregularity. Most of the various grounds upon which the irregularity of the order of the 27th of March, 1877, are alleged may probably be satisfactorily answered. The fifth ground upon which such irregularity is alleged, however, presents a more difficult question. It is in substance that the order releasing said real estate from the lien of the said judgment has never been entered in the proper clerk’s office, to wit: In the office of the clerk of the county of Onondaga, which was the county specified in the complaint as the place for the trial of the said action.

By the rules of the Supreme Court in force when the order of March 27, 1877, was made, any Special Term order in an action, and the papers upon which it was founded, must be entered and filed in the office of the clerk of the county specified in the complaint as the place of trial of the action, and by rule fourth it was provided, in substance, that it shall be the duty of the party prevailing on a motion, to cause the affidavits, papers and order granted upon a lion-enumerated motion to be filed, and the proper order entered in the proper county within ten days thereafter, or [442]*442he shall lose the benefit of said order and the. same shall be deemed vacated. It appears by the certificate of the clerk of the county of Onondaga that the papers on which the said order was granted have never been filed, or the order entered in his office.

It does not appear from the papers precisely when the savings bank received the bond and mortgage for $1,000, or when they advanced the consideration therefor, suffice it to say, however, that from other facts which do appear in the affidavit of the secretary that the bond and mortgage could not have taken effect until more than ten days had elapsed after the entry of the order of March 27, 1877, so that according to the practice of the court, the order of the 27th of March, 1877, was in effect vacated by non-compliance with the rule, as to the entry thereof in Onondaga county, at the time when the savings bank took the mortgage and advanced the consideration therefor.

Section 282 of the Code of Procedure under which the order of the 27th of March, 1877, was made, provides that upon the making of such order and a certain entry on the docket of the judgment, the judgment shall during the pendency of such appeal cease to be a lien upon the property so exempted, as against purchasers and mortgagees in good faith. It may be conceded that it is not necessary that a mortgagee, in order to be within the protection of the statute, should show that he had parted with value on the faith of the mortgage. (Union Dime Savings Ins. v. Duryea et al., 67 N. Y., 84.)

What then is the meaning of “good faith” as used in this statute ? It can only mean that the. mortgagee must have taken his mortgage without any design to defraud the plaintiffs in the judgment, or anybody else, and upon some bona fide consideration either present or past. In such a case he can avail himself of the protection of the statute, provided that a court having jurisdiction has made the necessary order under section 282. But in this case the order had become vacated before the savings bank took the mortgage. The order in accordance with the practice of the court was, in effect; conditional upon the entry in the proper county within ten days after it was granted. The counsel for the savings bank claims that it was not his duty to see that the order was duly entered. Perhaps not. But when he assumes to [443]*443act upon the supposition that it was a valid order he becomes responsible to show, in a case ■where its validity is drawn in question, all the facts which constitute a prerequisite to such validity. It would not be claimed that if the order had been made without jurisdiction, as, for instance, without any notice to the plaintiff in the judgment, that the mortgagee could rely upon it as a valid order, and we think the requisition that the order to be of any effect must be entered within ten days in the proper county, operated per se as a vacatur of the order in case the ten days had expired without such entry. (Sage v.

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Related

Union Dime Savings Institution v. . Duryea
67 N.Y. 84 (New York Court of Appeals, 1876)

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Bluebook (online)
24 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 439, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bronner-v-loomis-nysupct-1879.