Cusick v. Spencer

112 N.W. 1111, 149 Mich. 434, 1907 Mich. LEXIS 690
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 20, 1907
DocketDocket No. 31
StatusPublished

This text of 112 N.W. 1111 (Cusick v. Spencer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cusick v. Spencer, 112 N.W. 1111, 149 Mich. 434, 1907 Mich. LEXIS 690 (Mich. 1907).

Opinion

Montgomery, J.

This bill is filed for the purpose of having a deed made by defendant bank to defendant Edwin R. Spencer declared a mortgage and for an accounting as to the amount due Spencer, and for the privilege of redeeming.

The complainant, prior to 1894, was the owner of the premises in question, consisting of the south half of lots 158 and 159 of the city of Belding. There were two mortgages upon the property, the first amounting to about $300, subject to which the mortgage in question in this case was given. This last-named mortgage was, on the 20th of October, 1894, assigned to defendant Spencer. At that date there was due upon said mortgage the sum of $575. Complainant, through her husband, who acted as her agent in all the transactions involved in this case, agreed with Spencer to turn the rent of the house over to him to apply on the mortgage, and authorized Spencer to collect it. Spencer did collect the rent and, after paying taxes and some expenses, had in his hands $57.66 to apply on the mortgage, and turned over to the bank the $57.66 to be by it applied on the mortgage, and on May 3, 1895, assigned the mortgage to defendant bank. The bank notified complainant that foreclosure proceedings would be taken if payment were not made. On August 1st complainant sent a draft to defendant bank for $50, [436]*436and defendant Spencer paid to the bank $10.15 which he had retained in his hands but which should have been indorsed upon the mortgage. Complainant and her husband removed from Michigan to Wisconsin, and about this date defendant bank started foreclosure. The premises were bid in by the bank for the amount claimed to be due in the notice, together with interest and costs. No credit was given on the mortgage for the $57.66 rent, the $50 draft, and the $10.15 paid by Spencer, and the amount claimed to be due was excessive by the amount of $117.81.

In November, 1896, the defendant Spencer was approached in behalf of complainant with the request that some arrangement be made by which complainant might save her property. It should be stated that Spencer was the president of the defendant bank. On the 25th of November defendant wrote Mr. Cusick, complainant’s husband, as follows:

“ The time in which you can redeem the property expires some time next month. Mr. Post informs me that you would like to make one more effort to save the property. We have a chance to sell it as soon as we get possession so as to make a pretty good thing off of it, I think, but if there is anything to be made or saved out of it, it seems to me as if you ought to be the one to have the benefit.

“ Now, I will make you this proposition if accepted before the redemption runs out: I will take up the first mortgage and collect the rents and send you receipts twice a year to apply on contract for sale from me to you. I will accept $100 as first payment and $15 per month thereafter. This you see will reduce the amount to where it would be safe for any one to carry in a short time.”

On the first of December Mr. Cusick wrote Spencer asking for some information in regard to foreclosure. This was evidently before the receipt of Spencer’s letter of the 25th. On the 2d of December Cusick wrote in reply to the letter of the 25th:

[437]*437“ Yours of the 25th was received this afternoon. Was not mailed until yesterday. I wrote you a letter, not hearing from you, and explained to you. Please answer that immediately and • give me amount of interest, principal and costs, and in full what I am to pay. I do not understand what you mean by payment of $15 per month. Does it include the rent ? I will make up the $15, but it may come quarterly as my daughter does not draw her pay every month, and so would have to pay two or' three months at a .time. Will that be satisfactory ? ”

On the 14th of December Spencer wrote Cusick as follows:

“The amount of the claim of the People’s Savings Bank on your place here is $692.05, December 31st, 1896. I do not know just what the first claim is, perhaps you do. Now, if you will send me the $100, as you suggested, I will go and take up the first claim and give you a contract for a deed on the terms you made, $15 per month quarterly, you to have the rent applied on the amount.. You may send the money to me or the bank and we will immediately receipt for the same. If you accept this proposition, let me know at once.”

On the same day Cusick had written Spencer the following letter:

“ I have written you three times but no reply as yet, and I am getting very anxious to hear from you, and to have the contract for that place. I thought that I made it plain to you what I could do, and am waiting in great suspense, as I do not know when the time of redemption runs out, and you did not say only some time this month.”

On the 15th of December, Cusick wrote to Spencer as follows:

“Yours of the 14th is received, and contents noted, and in looking over your statement I cannot see how you make it $692.05. The principal was $500, and when I looked over one year ago last June there was somewheres about $25 interest due after paying that $10 house rent to Mr. Reed, and then I sent to Mr. Reed from Lowell, in draft, the last of July or the first of August, 1895, $50. You remember that I told you and Mr. Holmes that I would when you were in the bank, to keep the bank from fore[438]*438closing. And that would, as I had in my mind then and now, reduce it to about $485, and the interest from then till December 31, 1896. And the expense of foreclosing is what would be added to the amount due. I suppose it cost about $50 to foreclose, and I cannot see how you make it $692.05. You must be mistaken somewhere.

“ I wish you would look this all over and give me the dates of payments made and interest and otherwise, and what it cost to foreclose, and then I can see how it is. I only ask to have it all clear and satisfactory. But you can see by the way I state it, there is quite a wide difference, and if you can give me the figures and the dates of payments made on note, and the cost of foreclosure, it will show for itself.”

And on the 19th of December Cusick wrote Spencer, enclosing him $100, and requested him to send statement-of amount and indorsements made on note by payments and interest, cost of foreclosure, etc., and asked that the contract be made in the name of Eunice E. Cusick, complainant’s daughter, from whom complainant had made an arrangement to borrow the money to make the initial payment to Spencer.

On the 21st of December, 1896, Spencer again wrote as follows:

“In answer to yours of recent date I will say that I will take up all claims against the property, hold the deed in my own name and contract to deed to you free and clear when you shall pay me the amount actually paid by me with interest until paid at 7 per cent. The amount is as stated and I enclose you statement of bill of expense. You have or should know what the other claim is, as soon as I pay it will send'you the amount if we deal.

“You can make a contract as well as I, as I am a very busy man and my time is all employed. The amount against the property has got to be paid by some one with accrued interest until paid.

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Bluebook (online)
112 N.W. 1111, 149 Mich. 434, 1907 Mich. LEXIS 690, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cusick-v-spencer-mich-1907.