Buchanan v. Berkshire Life Insurance

96 Ind. 510, 1883 Ind. LEXIS 20
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 7, 1883
DocketNo. 9205
StatusPublished
Cited by59 cases

This text of 96 Ind. 510 (Buchanan v. Berkshire Life Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Buchanan v. Berkshire Life Insurance, 96 Ind. 510, 1883 Ind. LEXIS 20 (Ind. 1883).

Opinions

Zollars, J.

On the 20th day of September, 1876, the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, one of the appellees, filed its complaint in the court below, against James Buchanan and wife, William J. Davis and wife, William H. English, Henry Schnull, Albert E. Fletcher, Joseph M. Tilford and wife, and a number of others, to foreclose a mortgage executed to it by Buchanan and wife, and Davis and wife, on the 29th day of December, 1873. This mortgage was executed to secure a $15,000 note of"even date, due five years after date, with five per cent, attorney fees, and interest at ten per cent, per annum. The note contains this statement: The interest is paid to maturity by coupon notes hereto attached which, with the principal, are secured by mortgage.” Copies of six of these coupon notes, of $750 each, are filed with the [513]*513complaint. They are all of even date with the principal note and mortgage. Each contains a promise to pa^ $750, with five per cent, attorney fees, if suit be instituted, and ten per cent, after maturity. By their terms they were to mature thirty, thirty-six, forty-two, forty-eight, fifty-four and sixty months after date. The principal and coupon notes were executed by James Buchanan and William J. Davis. The mortgage, a copy of which is filed with the complaint, ■contains an agreement that the mortgagors should pay all. legal taxes and assessments against the property; that on default in that regard, the mortgagee might pay such taxes and assessments, and collect the amount, with ten per cent, interest, under the mortgage. The mortgage also contains an express promise ■ to pay the sum secured, without relief, etc., and five per cent, attorney fees in case of suit upon any of the notes or the mortgage. There is a further stipulation as follows: “ The mortgagors agree that upon failure to pay any or either of said principal, interest or coupon notes at maturity, or taxes or assessments, etc., as herein provided, then all of said mortgage debt shall, at mortgagee’s option, become due and collectible. But the omission of the mortgagee to exercise this option at any time, or times, shall not preclude said mortgagee from the exercise thereof 'at any subsequent default or defaults of the mortgagors in making payments as aforesaid.”

On the 1st day of December, 1876, a substituted amended complaint was filed. After stating the execution of the notes and mortgage, and the recording of the latter on the 5th day of January, 1874, the complaint contains the further averments that the $750 note, due thirty months after date, is due and unpaid; that the taxes for the year are also due and unpaid, and that according to the terms of the mortgage, on the happening of such defaults, the mortgage should be foreclosed for the whole of the notes evidencing the debt, at the option of the mortgagee, and the mortgagee so elects ; [514]*514and that all of the notes thus become and are due. There is the further averment that all of the defendants, except the makers of the mortgage, have, or claim to have, some interest in the mortgaged premises, and that if they have any such interest, the same is junior to the mortgage of the plaintiff, the Insurance Company.

Judgment is asked for $20,000 against the makers of the notes, the foreclosure of the mortgage against all of the defendants, and the sale of the mortgaged premises, or so much as may be necessary to pay the debt, and for all other proper relief.

William II. English and Henry Schnull each filed an answer and cross complaint. Albert E. Fletcher, Michael Tooley, and the Bank of Commerce and John Wyman, filed cross complaints. Other answers and cross complaints were filed, some of which are not set out in the record, and others of which we need not notice, as no question is made upon them in this court. The answers and -cross complaints of English, Fletcher, Schnull, the Bank of Commerce and Wyman, are based upon notes and a mortgage to secure the same,, executed to appellant Tilford; the notes being executed by Buchanan and Davis, and the mortgage by them and wives, on the 1st day of January, 1874. A portion of these notes were endorsed by Tilford to these cross complainants. Fletcher held two of them, one for $3,000, and one for $1,620, each providing for five per cent, attorney fees in case of suit, and ten per cent, interest after maturity, and to become due on or before the 1st day of January, 1883. English held three of the notes of $3,000 each, with like provisions as to interest and attorney fees, and to mature respectively, on or before the 1st day of January, 1877, 1878 and 1879. In addition to these, he held three others, one for $540, one for $720, and one for $900, each with like provisions as to interest and attorney fees, and to mature in the order named, on or before the 1st day respectively of January, 1877, 1878 and 1879. Schnull held three of the principal notes of $3,000, with the. [515]*515same provisions for interest and attorney fees, and to mature on or before the 1st day of January, 1881, 1882, and 1884. In addition to these, he held three others, one for $1,260, one for $1,440, and one for $1,800, to mature at the same dates with the $3,000 notes. The Bank of Commerce and Wyman held two of the notes, one for $3,000, and one for $1,-080, the latter being for interest on the former, each maturing-on or before the 1st day of January, 1880, and with the same provisions for interest and attorney fees. The smaller notes held by English, Schnull, Fletcher, the Bank of Commerce and Wyman, are shown by the mortgage to have been given for the interest on the larger and principal notes. These cross complainants, in their pleadings, admit that their liens are junior to that of the insurance company, but assert that they are superior to all others. Each, except the Bank of Commerce and Wyman, alleges that the mortgaged property is indivisible, without most serious injury and the lessening of their security.

English and Schnull aver in their cross complaints, that the property mortgaged is not sufficient to satisfy the claim of the insurance company and their claims, and that those personally liable are not good for the debts, or any one of them, and that the owners of the property are suffering it to get out of repair, and materially injured. They pray for judgment, a foreclosure of the mortgage, the appointment of a receiver, etc. After various other pleadings by the several parties, the cause, except as to the issues tendered by the cross complaint of T'ooley, Avas tried on the 16th day of June, 3877, and judgments and decrees rendered for the plaintiff and cross complainants. From this judgment, Buchanan and wife, and Tilford and wife, appealed to the general term, aiid thence to this court. The record will be further stated as we proceed with the examination of tbe several questions discussed by appellant’s counsel.

Buchanan and Avife ansAvered the complaint of the insurance company by general denial. Subsequently, Buchanan [516]*516filed three additional paragraphs of answer. The third was payment, and in bar of the whole complaint. He did not procure, or ask for a rule upon the plaintiff to reply to the answers, and no reply was filed. On the 11th day of June, preceding the trial, he moved for judgment in his favor against the plaintiff, on account of its failure to reply. The motion was overruled, .and he excepted.

It is strenuously insisted by appellant Buchanan, that the trial court erred in overruling the motion for judgment, and thus deprived him of a clear statutory right.

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96 Ind. 510, 1883 Ind. LEXIS 20, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/buchanan-v-berkshire-life-insurance-ind-1883.