Curtis v. Moore

63 S.W. 80, 162 Mo. 442, 1901 Mo. LEXIS 173
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMay 14, 1901
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 63 S.W. 80 (Curtis v. Moore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Curtis v. Moore, 63 S.W. 80, 162 Mo. 442, 1901 Mo. LEXIS 173 (Mo. 1901).

Opinion

MARSHALL, J.

This is a bill in equity to declare a resulting trust, for an accounting, and to set aside a trustee’s deed to eighty acres of land in Scott county, Missouri, being the south half of the northwest quarter, of section twenty-four, township twenty-seven, to divest the title out of the purchaser at the sale under the deed of trust and vest it in the plaintiff, if the accounting shows that the debt secured by the deed of trust was paid before the deed of trust was foreclosed, and if not so paid, to require the trustee to turn over to the plaintiff the surplus of the amount received by him at the foreclosure Sale, remaining in his hands after the debt was satisfied. There was a decree in the circuit court for the plaintiff, setting aside the trustee’s deed and vesting the title in the plaintiff, from which the defendants prosecuted this appeal.

The record discloses the facts to be: that on the fourth of October, 1883, defendant H. H. M. Williams and wife [445]*445conveyed the land by warranty deed to Melkier O. Ware, for an expressed consideration of $320. On the seventeenth of October, 1883, said Ware executed and delivered to defendant Joseph H. Moore, as trustee for defendant H. H. M. Williams, a deed of trust on the land to secure a debt of $320, evidenced by Ware’s three notes for $106.50 each, payable at one, two and three years, respectively, with ten per cent interest from date, to be compounded- annually if not paid. Ware died on the twenty-ninth of December, 1887. Prior to his death Ware paid Williams an amount, which the plaintiff contends was nearly sufficient to extinguish the whole debt, and after his death the plaintiff, his widow, paid Williams a further amount, which she claims was more than enough to pay the interest and the balance of the debt, the excess being paid by her by mistake and in ignorance of the alleged subsequently-discovered fact that the debt had been fully discharged. The defendants deny that the payments by Ware and by the plaintiff were sufficient to liquidate the debt, and on the contrary contend that on the twenty-eighth of December, 1896, the two notes, payable at one and two years, had been paid, but that there was still due on the last note, payable at three years, a balance of $163.65, and that at the plaintiff’s request the deed of trust was foreclosed on that day, and defendant Marshall, became the purchaser of the land at the price of five hundred dollars, of which $163.65 was applied to the payment of the last note, $17 to expenses, and of the surplus, $50 was turned over to the plaintiff, and the balance, $269.35, was still in the hands of the trustee, which he offered to pay to whomsoever the court adjudged was entitled to it.

The plaintiff claims that the money paid by her husband was her separate property, and that the payments she made after his death were made out of her own funds, and hence, she seeks to establish a resulting trust in her favor in the land.

[446]*446The notes themselves were offered in evidence and the first one bears an indorsement: “Paid on this note $141.74 out of the $192 received on the Simpson note, May 1, 1889.” This coneededly extinguished this note. The second note is indorsed: “Received $120.70 on March 3, 1889; balance due, $58.60”; “Received on this note $50.26, balance received on the Simpson note of $192 not credited on the former note,” no date; and, further, “Paid balance on this note,” no date given. It is also conceded that this note was fully paid. The third note shows these indorsements: “Paid on this note ten dollars and sixty-five cents, Aug. 10, 1890 (as Aug. 17-90) J. H. Moore; Paid on this note ten and 65-100, $10.65, Aug. 24-90 (as Aug. 17-91) ; Paid on this note Thirty and 60-100 dollars, Aug. 31-92, $30.60 (as Aug. 17-92). Bal. 190.18; Paid on this Sept. 18-93 eight and 55-100 dollars, $8.55 (as Aug. 17-93), bal. 200.65; Reed. May 4-94 per. Jas. H. Moore fifty-four and 55-100 dollars, $54.55, bal. 161.05; Received Aug. 27-94 eighteen dollars $18.00, on within note, bal. 148.10; Received Eeb. 27-96 twenty dollars, ($20.00) Bal. 151.05; Dec. 28-96. Paid in full by sale of land $163.65, J. H. Moore, Trustee.”

All of these indorsements were in the handwriting of defendant, Moore, the trustee, or of defendant, Williams, the cestui que trust. In addition to these payments the plaintiff showed that she paid defendant Williams, through James E. Evans, $18 on the thirty-first of August, 1894, and $35 on the sixth of May, 1894.

Thus it appears that the notes at one and two years were fully paid. The defendants contend that Ware paid nothing on the three-year note during his life; that the plaintiff made the first payment of $10.65 on the tenth of August, 1890, and that the aggregate payments she made from that time to December 28, 1896, when the property was sold, were $153; that [447]*447compounding the interest annually, and deducting the several payments so made by her, left a balance due on the note on December 28, 1896, of $163.65 and hence, the debt was not paid, and, therefore, the foreclosure of the deed of trust was legal and proper.

To overcome this, however, the plaintiff shows that she paid .the $18 and the $35 aforesaid, which she is not credited with by the defendant, and also claims that the proceeds of the Simpson note were $300, to which she added $20, and that her husband paid Williams the $320, which extinguished the whole debt, except, perhaps, some forty dollars which she after-wards paid, and, therefore, the whole debt was paid before the foreclosure of the deed of trust, and hence, the sale was void.

It will be observed that the plaintiff contends that her husband paid Williams $320 the proceeds of the Simpson note with the twenty dollars added, whereas, Williams gave credit for only $192, and this is the principal dispute between the parties in this case, outside of the $18 and $35 paid by plaintiff through Evans to Williams.

The Simpson note, which plays so important a part in this case, was a note for three hundred dollars, made by J. E. Simpson to M. C. Ware, plaintiff’s husband, in payment for land owned by M. C. Ware, and sold by him to Simpson. The date of the note is not disclosed by the record. On the eighth of August, 1887, Ware sold the note to Ben Hunter for its face value, three hundred dollars. The plaintiff claims to have added twenty dollars to this sum, thereby aggregating the face of the three notes given by Ware to Williams on the seventeenth of October, 1883, and that Ware paid this $320 to Williams about the ninth of August, 1887. In this way (together with the amount paid by plaintiff after Ware’s death) it is asserted that the debt secured by the deed of trust was more than fully paid before the foreclosure, and, hence, [448]*448the debt being paid tbe deed of trust was fundus officio, and the sale void.

As stated, after tbe sale, tbe plaintiff accepted fifty dollars of tbe surplus remaining after tbe application of tbe proceeds of sale to tbe notes and expenses, and thereafter rented the premises from the purchaser for a year, and paid therefor one hundred and forty dollars rent. But she claims that this was done in ignorance of the fact that the debt had been paid before the foreclosure, and therefore she is not estopped by that conduct on her part.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
63 S.W. 80, 162 Mo. 442, 1901 Mo. LEXIS 173, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/curtis-v-moore-mo-1901.