Cimarron Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. McKnight

1992 OK CIV APP 12, 840 P.2d 648, 63 O.B.A.J. 3430, 1992 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 100, 1992 WL 345856
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedFebruary 18, 1992
DocketNo. 76086
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 1992 OK CIV APP 12 (Cimarron Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. McKnight) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cimarron Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. McKnight, 1992 OK CIV APP 12, 840 P.2d 648, 63 O.B.A.J. 3430, 1992 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 100, 1992 WL 345856 (Okla. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

OPINION

HUNTER, Judge:

Appellant, Cimarron, appeals from an adverse judgment following trial. The trial court held that Appellee-Borrowers, Gary McKnight and Denny Davidson, were not personally liable for the unpaid balance of a Note Cimarron owed. The unpaid balance of the Note at the time of trial was $287,013.11. Borrowers, McKnight and Davidson, are the only Appellees involved in this appeal. The other Appellees have no personal liability on the Note. Andrea Lou McKnight and Peggy Davidson are parties only because they signed the mortgage that secured the Note. McKnight Realty Company and Sav-Mor Builders Company owned the mortgaged property. Borrowers concede Cimarron’s right to foreclose on its mortgage. The issues entirely turn on whether Borrowers, McKnight and Davidson, are personally liable under the Note.

During the pendency of this appeal, the Resolution Trust Corporation was appointed Conservator of Cimarron. As a result of Cimarron’s failure, the Supreme Court ordered RTC substituted as Appellant in place of Cimarron.

Borrowers signed the Note on March 29, 1985. Under its terms, Borrowers agreed to pay Phoenix Federal Savings and Loan Association, Muskogee, Oklahoma, $241,-344.40 in monthly installments for three years, until April 1, 1987. On April 1, 1987, Borrowers were to pay the unpaid balance of the Note as a balloon payment.

In July, 1986, McKnight, and his wife sold the mortgaged property to Willard Thomas, and his wife Cinda L. Thomas. Phoenix consented to the sale of the mortgaged property. The McKnights and the Thomases entered into a Loan Assumption [650]*650and Modification Agreement with Phoenix.1 Under the Modification Agreement, Thomas and his wife “assume[d] and agree[d] to pay” the Note. Phoenix also reduced the interest rate from an adjustable rate, calling for a minimum of 12%, to a fixed rate of 11%.' The Agreement called for monthly payments of $2,491.13 each from August 1, 1986 through July 1, 1991.

On March 29, 1988, Phoenix entered into a second Modification Agreement with Thomas. The only additional change it made in the Note was to further reduce the interest rate from 11% to 10%.

Both Modification Agreements contained the following provision:

It is expressly understood and agreed that in every other respect each and every provision of said note above mentioned shall be and remain in full force and effect ...

The Thomases’ Loan Application, dated July 10, 1986, contained the notation, “Original borrower not relieved of liability.”

Phoenix carried the Note and the first Modification Agreement under loan account number 03-0005786. Phoenix assigned loan account number 01-10124294 to the second Modification Agreement. On the day Phoenix and Thomas signed the second Modification Agreement, March 29, 1988, Phoenix changed the loan account number of the Note and fjrst Modification Agreement from 03-0005786 to 01-10124294, the account number assigned to the second Modification Agreement.

On August 31, 1988, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board appointed the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation as Receiver for Phoenix. On the same day, Cimarron took an assignment of the Note and the mortgage securing it from Phoenix’s Receiver, the FSLIC.

The central issue in this appeal is whether the Note was an asset of Phoenix when the FSLIC took over Phoenix’s assets. This is crucial because a rule of federal law called the D’Oench doctrine governs this case. We have found no Oklahoma Cases dealing with this rule of law. It is therefore important that we analyze the D’Oench doctrine.

The D’Oench Doctrine

The D’Oench doctrine is a rule of federal common law. It applies to suits brought by federal authorities, or their assignees, against debtors of federally regulated banking or savings and loan institutions after the institutions fail and federal authorities take them over. It limits the defenses of debtors of these failed institutions to those supported by the institution’s official records. Oral agreements between officers of a failed financial institution and its debtors, not reflected in the institution’s records, are not available to the debtors in suits brought against them by federal authorities or their assignees.

In D’Oench, Duhme & Co. v. FDIC, 315 U.S. 447, 62 S.Ct. 676, 86 L.Ed. 956 (1942), the FDIC sued on a note held by a failed bank. The maker denied liability based on his oral agreement with the failed bank’s President that the bank would never demand payment of the note. The maker had signed the note as a favor to the bank’s President. The maker did so to help the baiik hide that it was carrying defaulted bonds on its books. The debtor received no money from the transaction. The Supreme Court held that federal banking laws include a public policy to protect the FDIC and the public funds it administers from misrepresentations as to the assets and financial condition of the banks it insures and to whom it loans money. Id. 315 U.S. at 457, 62 S.Ct. at 679. The court held that banking authorities would be misled about the bank’s financial condition if the maker could rely on his agreement with the bank’s President. Thus, said the court, the maker was estopped to claim that his liability was other than as shown in the bank’s official records. Id. 315 U.S. at 459-61, 62 S.Ct. at 680-81.

[651]*651The failure of Penn Square Bank in July, 1982 marked the beginning of a banking and savings and loan crisis of a size not seen in the United States since the 1930s. In the ensuing ten years, a veritable blizzard of published opinions from both state and federal courts have applied the D’Oench doctrine. In the late 1980s, Congress enacted a comprehensive reform of the federal financial institution regulatory structure. At every stage, Congress and the courts have broadened the D’Oench doctrine. For example, in FSLIC v. Murray, 853 F.2d 1251, 1254-55 (5th Cir.1988), the court held that the D’Oench doctrine applied to the FSLIC to the same extent it applied to the FDIC.

Congress created the Resolution Trust Corporation as part of its broad reform of the statutes regulating financial institutions. Congress gave the RTC the same powers as the FDIC and the FSLIC had prior to the passage of the new act. 12 U.S.C. § 1441a(b).

Assignees of the FSLIC and the FDIC are protected by the D’Oench doctrine. Porras v. Petroplex Savings Association, 903 F.2d 379 (5th Cir.1990); Bell & Murphy & Assoc. v. Interfirst Bank Gateway, 894 F.2d 750 (5th Cir.1990); Willow Tree Investments, Inc. v. Wagner, 453 N.W.2d 641 (Iowa 1991).

Even misrepresentations by bank officers are not a defense to a suit by regulators. Langley v. FDIC, 484 U.S. 86, 108 S.Ct. 396, 98 L.Ed.2d 340 (1987). In Langley,

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1992 OK CIV APP 12, 840 P.2d 648, 63 O.B.A.J. 3430, 1992 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 100, 1992 WL 345856, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cimarron-federal-savings-loan-assn-v-mcknight-oklacivapp-1992.