Citizens' Savings Bank of San Diego v. MacK

180 P. 618, 180 Cal. 246, 1919 Cal. LEXIS 474
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedApril 21, 1919
DocketL. A. No. 4734.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 180 P. 618 (Citizens' Savings Bank of San Diego v. MacK) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Citizens' Savings Bank of San Diego v. MacK, 180 P. 618, 180 Cal. 246, 1919 Cal. LEXIS 474 (Cal. 1919).

Opinion

LENNON, J.

The plaintiff by this action sought to restrain by injunction the defendant Bentley Ostrich Farm from canceling certain certificates of its corporate capital stock standing on its books in the name of the defendant Henry Eummelen, and to prohibit the corporation defendant from issuing to the defendant Mack other certificates in lieu thereof evidencing in the aggregate 280 shares of the corporate stock, and also to restrain the defendant Mack from receiving under claim of ownership or otherwise all or any portion of the said stock. The appeal, presented on the judgment-roll alone, is only from that particular portion of the judgment which in effect decreed that the plaintiff held the certificates of stock in controversy as a pledge to secure the payment of only twelve thousand dollars, instead of twenty-four thousand dollars, and provided that before a sale of 280 shares of said stock could be resorted to in satisfaction of the loan, which the trial court found were owned by the defendant Mack, the plaintiff must first foreclose the real property mortgage executed to plaintiff by defendant Eummelen simultaneously with the pledge of the stock as additional security for the loan of twenty-four thousand dollars, which was ultimately made by the plaintiff to the defendant Eummelen. In this behalf the portion of the judgment appealed from directed that the proceeds of the sale of the mortgaged property be applied first to the satisfaction óf a second loan of twelve thousand dollars, and that then the plaintiff might have recourse to a sale of said stock in satisfaction of the unpaid balance, if any, of the twelve thousand dollars originally loaned to the defendant Eummelen, and secured by a pledge of the stock and a first mortgage on real property as well.

The facts of the case, as evidenced by the pleadings, proof and findings, are these: In November, 1911, W. H. Bentley was the owner and holder of 840 shares of the issued capital stock of the Bentley Ostrich Farm. In that month, the defendant Henry Eummelen represented to A. F. Mack, defendant and respondent herein, that a controlling interest in *248 said Ostrich Farm could be had for fifty thousand dollars. Thereupon an agreement was entered into by and between Mack and Eummelen whereby they were to jointly purchase the said 840 shares, each to advance one-half of the purchase price, and each in return to receive 420 shares of said stock Eummelen alone conducted the negotiations with Bentley, acting all the while for himself, and as agent of Mack. During the course of the negotiations, Eummelen informed Mack that he was unable to contribute twenty-five thousand dollars in cash as payment for his portion of the purchase price, and represented to Mack that Bentley was willing to take from Eummelen, in lieu of cash, his promissory note extending over a period of two years if Mack would pay fifteen thousand dollars in cash and give his promissory note for ten thousand dollars, and that if Mack would do this Bentley would convey to Mack in addition to the said 420 shares of stock certain real property situate in the city of San Diego, which was mortgaged for one thousand five hundred dollars and valued at three thousand dollars. Mack was willing and accordingly paid Bentley the sum of fifteen thousand dollars in cash and delivered his promissory note to Bentley in the sum of ten thousand dollars. Bentley in turn executed to Mack a deed to said real property. The representations made in the first instance by Eummelen to Mack that the purchase price of the stock was fifty thousand dollars were false, and willfully and knowingly made by Eummelen, who at all times knew that the price of the stock was but thirty thousand dollars, and in fact had, during the negotiations for the sale of the stock, agreed with Bentley, without Mack’s knowledge, that the purchase price thereof was to be but thirty thousand dollars. A sale of the stock was consummated by Eummelen and Bentley at that price, ibut as a payment in full for his 420 shares he gave Bentley only a promissory note for five thousand dollars. In March, 1912, Mack discovered the fraud that had been thus perpetrated upon him, and on August 12, 1912, instituted an action, which sought' and secured a judgment, entered on August 4, 1913, decreeing that he was the owner of such portion of the 840 shares of stock purchased as the sum that he had personally paid toward the purchase price of the stock bore to the amount actually paid therefor, namely, seven hundred shares, and that the defendant Eummelen held 28C *249 shares of said stock in trust for Mack. On June 20th, the defendant Eummelen placed with the Citizens’ Savings Bank of San Diego, the plaintiff in the present action, as a pledge to secure a loan of twelve thousand dollars, and such further sums as might thereafter be advanced, not to exceed the sum of twenty-four thousand dollars, stock certificates certifying that in the aggregate the defendant Eummelen was the owner of 420 shares of stock in the Bentley Ostrich Farm. The stock so pledged, being the one-half of that purchased from Bentley for himself and Mack, was only part of the security placed for this loan, a real property mortgage also being executed to the bank by Eummelen on certain property owned by him. On December 27, 1912, plaintiff advanced to Eummelen as a loan the further sum of three thousand dollars, and on February 6, 1913, the additional sum of nine thousand dollars, taking, however, as added security from Eummelen a second mortgage on the aforesaid real property which is situate in San Diego County. On August 4, 1913, ten days after the entry of the judgment in the action instituted by Mack decreeing Eummelen a trustee of the 280 shares of the stock which had been pledged to the plaintiff by Eummelen, the plaintiff appeared and interposed in that action a motion to vacate and to set aside the judgment, to the end that it might be allowed to intervene. From the order denying the motion the plaintiff here appealed, but the order was affirmed. (Mack v. Eummelen, 31 Cal. App. 506, [160 Pac. 1096].)

The principal point argued in support of the appeal is to the effect that the relative rights and obligations of the parties to the pledge of the stock were definitely determined by the initial loan agreement of June 20, 1912, and that, as a consequence, it was not only the plaintiff’s right, but his unavoidable contractual obligation as well, to make further loans to the pledgor of the stock up to the limit of twenty-four thousand dollar's, and that this was so despite the fact that prior to the making of the second and third loans of respectively three thousand dollars and nine thousand dollars plaintiff had, as the trial court found, actual notice of the fact that the defendant Mack had instituted an action for the recovery of 280 shares of the pledged stock upon the claim that he was the equitable owner thereof. This contention is rested primarily upon the authority of Jones *250 on Pledges, section 106, where it is said: “A promissory note pledged before maturity as collateral security for future advances is good in the creditor’s handts for all advances made before notice of equities between the original parties; but not for advances made after such notice—unless the creditor at the time of talcing the security bound himself to malee advances to a definite amount.”

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Bluebook (online)
180 P. 618, 180 Cal. 246, 1919 Cal. LEXIS 474, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/citizens-savings-bank-of-san-diego-v-mack-cal-1919.