Carter v. Jim Walter Homes, Inc.

731 S.W.2d 12, 1987 Ky. App. LEXIS 494
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedJune 5, 1987
StatusPublished

This text of 731 S.W.2d 12 (Carter v. Jim Walter Homes, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carter v. Jim Walter Homes, Inc., 731 S.W.2d 12, 1987 Ky. App. LEXIS 494 (Ky. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

COMBS, Judge.

This is an appeal from a summary judgment and order of sale of the Logan Circuit Court in a foreclosure action. The issue on appeal is whether the record demonstrates genuine issues of material fact as to payment arrearages, failure to maintain homeowners' insurance, and construction defects raised in appellants’ counterclaim, which would preclude summary judgment pursuant to CR 56.03.

Appellants, Billy Wayne and Georgia Carter [hereafter Billy Wayne or Georgia], contracted with appellee, Jim Walter Homes, Inc., [hereafter Jim Walter], in February 1980 for the construction of a house and executed a promissory note secured by mortgage. The contract contained an acceleration clause whereby the entire balance owed on the note could become immediately due and collectible at mortgagee’s option when appellants were delinquent in their monthly mortgage payments for more than thirty (30) days. Furthermore, appellants were contractually required to maintain insurance on the house, and were to be considered in default if they failed to pay their premium within thirty (30) days of the lapse of said insurance. Appellee placed the account in foreclosure in December, 1985, claiming that appellants had not made their October, November and December, 1985 payments and that their insurance had lapsed as of August, 1985. Appellee filed suit in January, 1986, and moved for summary judgment in June after taking appellants’ depositions. The circuit court granted the motion in July, 1986, ordered the sale of appellants’ subject property and dismissed appellants’ counterclaim with prejudice.

The first issue pertains to appellants’ alleged delinquency in their October, November and December, 1985 mortgage payments. Appellee offered an affidavit and a ledger sheet as evidence of the missing payments and of the fact that many other payments had been more than thirty days delinquent.

In their deposition, Billy Wayne and Georgia disagreed with appellee’s claim of frequent delinquency. Georgia also testified that she made the October, November and December, 1985 payments. Although the Carters’ brief advances that cash payments were often made, Georgia’s deposition indicates that money orders were the usual mode of payment, and were either mailed or taken to her father for mailing or pickup by a Jim Walter representative. The only cash payment specifically referred [14]*14to, and evidenced in appellee’s Account Contract Report, was $150.00 tendered on September 26, 1984 and testified to be partial payment for September. Georgia also testified that her father would send the money orders to Jim Walter as close to payment date as he could, and would let her know when there was going to be some delay.

Appellee argues that the Carters’ claim that they made the October, November and December payments must fail because they did not produce any evidence of these payments and did not satisfy their burden of proof as set forth in Massie’s Ex’x v. Massie’s Ex’x, 288 Ky. 370, 156 S.W.2d 195 (1941) and in Desjardins v. Desjardins, 308 F.2d 111 (6th Cir.1962).

Appellants offered several money order customer receipts: one dated December 12, 1985 which Georgia testified was the December, 1985 payment; a second dated January 7, 1986 which she stated was purchased by Billy Wayne for January; a third dated May 19, 1986 which was not testified to in appellants’ deposition but which, together with the January 7 money order, was returned by appellee’s counsel to appellants’ counsel two days after appellants had testified, in their sworn affidavit in support of their reply to appellee’s motion for summary judgment, that they had continued making payments to Jim Walter after the filing of this action, that payments had been accepted by appellee and that appellants were current with their monthly payments. Subsequently, appellants moved the court to be granted leave to make their monthly payments into court, including the ones that had been returned to them.

We hold that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to the allegedly missing payments. Appellee claims appellants produced no evidence of payment. Appellants testified they made the payments and produced some money order receipts which, in our considered opinion, could evidence at least a portion of the contended payments. Furthermore, appellants’ tendered payments after foreclosure, their claim that they made continuous payments and were current, and their offer to make payments into court raise an issue as to the existence of default, which was not put to rest by any of appellee’s allegations. We also notice that appellee did not provide appellants with a payment book which could have helped all concerned parties keep up with the account and the payment dates.

We believe that appellee’s ledger sheet alone is not sufficient to provide the evidence calling for a summary judgment in its favor. Georgia, the spouse handling most of the couple’s bills, disagreed with some of the dates on appellee’s ledger sheet. We also nóte that the ledger sheet might not totally reflect the status of appellants’ account since it fails to show any event for the months of October, November and December, 1985 except for a $278.70 payment made on December 17 and credited to September, and the December 26 declaration of foreclosure. In addition, there is in the record the copy of a $128.00 cashier’s check made to appellee and dated July 22, 1985 which does not appear on the ledger sheet. In summary, we find that genuine issues of fact regarding appellants’ alleged delinquency are raised by the record. Appellee cites Hartford Insurance Group v. Citizens Fidelity Bank & Trust Co., Ky.App., 579 S.W.2d 628 (1979) for the proposition that summary judgment was proper because appellants presented no contradicting evidence. However, the Hartford case also holds that even when there is no contradicting evidence, the evidence presented by the moving party must be of such nature that no genuine issue of fact remains to be resolved. Since we concluded it was not so, we hold that summary judgment on this issue was clearly erroneous.1

On the matter of insurance, it is appel-lee’s position that appellants let it lapse, that appellants were informed of the lapse by Jim Walter and by State Farm Insurance, and that Jim Walter had to take [15]*15insurance on their behalf. Appellants testified that they never received the letters dated June 20 and August 22, 1985 in which Mid-State Homes, Inc. (Jim Walter) informed them of the cancellation of their insurance policy, neither did they receive State Farm’s cancellation notice dated August 7, 1985 and indicating they owed $145.39. All they received was a card from Jim Walter describing a new insurance policy with Best Insurers, Inc., at a rate they place at $600 — $700.00 which, according to our review of the record, appears to be three times higher than the policy they had with State Farm.

We find that the record contains many issues of fact relating to appellants’ insurance. Appellants expressed surprise that appellee would send them a letter of insurance cancellation in June since their State Farm insurance was still good at the time.

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Related

Hartford Insurance Group v. Citizens Fidelity Bank & Trust Co.
579 S.W.2d 628 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1979)
Massie's Ex'x v. Massie's Ex'x
156 S.W.2d 195 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976), 1941)
Mayes v. Coe
402 S.W.2d 685 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1966)
Desjardins v. Desjardins
308 F.2d 111 (Sixth Circuit, 1962)

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Bluebook (online)
731 S.W.2d 12, 1987 Ky. App. LEXIS 494, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carter-v-jim-walter-homes-inc-kyctapp-1987.