Corinth State Bank v. First Nat. Bank of Florence

117 So. 216, 217 Ala. 632, 1928 Ala. LEXIS 94
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedMarch 22, 1928
Docket8 Div. 981.
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 117 So. 216 (Corinth State Bank v. First Nat. Bank of Florence) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Corinth State Bank v. First Nat. Bank of Florence, 117 So. 216, 217 Ala. 632, 1928 Ala. LEXIS 94 (Ala. 1928).

Opinion

SAYRE, J.

The original bill in this cause was filed by Homer Marshall as surviving partner of Marshall Tie Company, a partnership composed of complainant and E. D. Marshall, now deceased, for the settlement of the affairs of the partnership. The 'Corinth State Bank of Corinth, Miss., and the First National Bank of Florence, Ala., were made parties defendant on an averment that they held or claimed liens on a tract of 10,-000 acres of land, which had been the property of the partnership, in Colbert county. The question now presented for decision arose out of a cross-bill filed by the Corinth bank in which it averred that, on the request of E. D. Marshall, it had furnished the money to pay a note for $8,529.84, held by Franklin R. Webber of Boston, Mass., and secured' by a first mortgage on the Colbert county land, with the agreement that the repayment of the money so advanced- should be secured by the lien of the mortgage. Cross-complainant sought to be subrogated to the security of the mortgage held by Webber. The Florence bank showed that it had held a mortgage on the Marshall land, executed after the Webber mortgage which was duly recorded —a second mortgage in fact, though it did not purport to be a second mortgage — and that it had foreclosed the mortgage purchased from Webber and at the foreclosure sale had purchased the land at a price of $25,000, something less than its second mortgage indebtedness, and denied any right of subrogation in the Corinth bank. On final hearing on pleading and proof, the chancellor dismissed the cross-bill. The Corinth bank appeals.

The note for $8,529.84, mentioned above, was the fifth of a series of six notes for like amounts given to secure the purchase price of the Colbert county land. E. D. Marshall at its due date had made a payment of $5,-000 on the fifth note of the series, and, in order to raise funds for the payment of the balance due on the fifth and as well for the payment of the sixth, not then due, Marshall applied to the Corinth bank for a loan. The bank let him have $14,000 — not as much as he asked for — taking’ collateral security, which afterwards in large part proved to be worthless. The testimony of several witnesses goes to show that in negotiating the loan from the Corinth bank to E. D. Marshall it was distinctly understood and explicitly agreed between the parties to the transaction that out of the funds so secured Marshall would pay the balance due on the fifth note held by Webber, take up the note, and turn it over to the bank to be held, along with the rest of the collateral, as security for the loan. There is no contradiction of this testimony, nor anything unusual or unreasonable in the nature of the transaction, and we are unable on any adequate ground to hold that the transaction was not negotiated or consummated in the manner and with the result detailed by these witnesses. Not exclusively by any means, but in the main as we gather, the defense interposed by the Florence bank rested upon the proposition that there was a failure of proof going to show that the money borrowed from the Bank of Corinth, or so much thereof as was necessary to pay the balance due on the -note in question, went in fact to the payment of that note. We are unable on the record to deny the fair and reasonable inference that-it was so applied. The loan tó MarshaU was con *634 summated November 3, 1924. At ihat time E. D. Marshall, Who managed the affairs of the partnership, was heavily involved and was looking around for money to keep his business on foot. He owed the Florence bank $30,000. He owed the Bank of Princeton, Ky., with which ordinarily he did business, a much larger sum. ' Webber was pressing for payment of the fifth of the purchase-money notes then past due. The Princeton bank, by representations concerning the character and financial ability of Marshall, helped him to get the loan from the Corinth bank with which, prior to that time, he had had no dealings. The $14,000 was transmitted to the Princeton bank November 3, 1924. Webber, in Boston, acknowledged the receipt of a check for $4,633.40, on November 6, 1924, of which amount $4,113.69 went to pay the balance due on the fifth year note, but denied Marshall’s request for a transfer of the note for the assigned, and doubtless the true, reason that the sixth of the purchase-money notes held by him remained to be paid, and he did not wish any one else to own an interest in his mortgage. The note was marked “Paid and canceled,” and returned' to Marshall. Mr. Pomeroy, apropos of cases circumstanced as is this, says:

“Whether one not himself paying the debt, but loaning money to the debtor upon his personal security, but with the understanding that it is to be. used in removing an incumbrance, is thereby entitled to claim the benefit of the incumbrance removed, is a matter of doubt.” 5 Pom. Bq. Jur. (2d Ed.) § 2347, citing cases pro and con in the footnote.

In this state our predecessors Brickell, Stone, and Somerville, in Bolman v. Lohman, 74 Ala. 507, 511, held the rule to be well settled that-—

“Where money is expressly advanced in order to- extinguish a prior incumbrance, and is used for this purpose, with the just expectation on the part of the lender of obtaining a valid security, * * * the lender * * * may be subrogated to the rights of the prior incumbrancer, whose claim he has satisfied; there being no intervening equity to prevent” — citing Kitchell v. Mudgett, 3-7 Mich. 82; Sheldon on Subrog. §§ 8, 20; Dixon on Subrog. 165, which fully sustain the decision.

In Bolman v. Lohman, the court cited with approval the cases of McWilliams v. Jenkins, 72 Ala. 480, and Irwin v. Bailey, 72 Ala. 467, where, in the first-named case, the funds of one party were appropriated, without his consent, to discharge a lien on land, he was held entitled to subrogation, by a declaration that he thereby became the equitable assignee of the lien for reimbursement, and, in the other (72 Ala. 467) the discharge of the lien was held to be a purchase for the benefit of the person furnishing the funds, rather than an extinguishment. These cases have been followed on numerous occasions. Allen v. Caylor, 120 Ala. 252, 24 So. 512, 74 Am. St. Hep. 31; Bigelow v. Scott, 135 Ala. 236, 33 So. 546, and cases there cited; First Avenue Coal Co. v. King, 193 Ala. 438, 69 So. 549; Arnett v. Willoughby, 190 Ala. 530; 67 So. 426. In such cases it has been determined that the court of equity will keep alive the incumbrance as against strangers and third parties, even though such incumbrance “has been actually canceled and satisfied of record, where this can be done without injury to them.” First Avenue Coal Co. v. King, supra; Fouche v. Swain, 80 Ala. 151; Woodruff v. Satterfield, 199 Ala. 479, 74 So. 948, and authorities cited in the last-named case. Our statutes on the subject of subrogation in favor of sureties do not affect this ease. Code, -§ 9553.

Appellant’s proposal to take over the fifth note would have left Webber in possession and ownership of the sixth note unpaid. In the situation thus disclosed it may be suggested that the equitable rule will not permit subrogation to be decreed until the whole debt is paid. Atherton v. Tesch, 202 Ala. 448, 80 So. 832; Cross v. Bank of Ensley, 205 Ala. 274, 87 So. 843. The reason for the rule is that, so long as the party, whose rights are claimed for use in protecting the party who would invoke the doctrine, remains unsatisfied, though in part only, there will be no interference with his rights or securities which might, even by bare possibility, prejudice, or embarrass him in the collection of his claim.

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Bluebook (online)
117 So. 216, 217 Ala. 632, 1928 Ala. LEXIS 94, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/corinth-state-bank-v-first-nat-bank-of-florence-ala-1928.