Fidelity National Bank & Trust Co. v. Cloninger

51 P.2d 35, 142 Kan. 558, 1935 Kan. LEXIS 17
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedNovember 9, 1935
DocketNo. 32,286
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 51 P.2d 35 (Fidelity National Bank & Trust Co. v. Cloninger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fidelity National Bank & Trust Co. v. Cloninger, 51 P.2d 35, 142 Kan. 558, 1935 Kan. LEXIS 17 (kan 1935).

Opinion

The opinion of the court wás delivered by

Hutchison, J.:

This appeal is from a judgment for plaintiff in an action for an.ordinary foreclosure of a mortgage.

The statement of the case by the defendants, who are the appellants here, in their abstract, disposes of some of .the law propositions submitted to the trial court and argued here as errors made by that court. It is said in the statement that John W. Cloninger,' one of the defendants, mortgaged his farm in Labette county on April 31, 1923, to secure his note of $5,000 payable in ten years to the Fidelity Savings Trust Company. The amended petition pleads these matters, but it is strongly urged the petition should have been made more definite and certain, and the demurrer thereto should have been sustained because the petition failed to state that the registration fee had been paid on the mortgage, without which it could not be introduced in evidence nor could judgment be rendered thereon. The statement gives the date of the note secured by this mortgage as April 11, 1923. The registration fee law (R. S. 1933 Supp. 79-3107) was enacted February 23, 1925, and made to apply only to all mortgages executed on or after March 1, 1925. So the matter of paying the registration fee is not involved in this case. (Brattleboro Savings Bank v. Arbegast, 142 Kan. 293, 46 P. 2d 884.)

Another matter strongly urged by appellants is also disposed of by this statement. Appellants demanded a jury trial on the ground that the verified answer put in issue the indebtedness of the. principal defendant. The petition, like the statement, alleges that he executed a note for $5,000 which was secured by a mortgage. The verified answer does hot deny the execution of the note nor allege payment of the same. So the verified answer did not put in issue the execution of the note (Kimble v. Bunny, 61 Kan. 665, 60 Pac. 746), nor was a jury issue raised by the pleadings. (Union State Bank v. Chapman, 124 Kan. 315, 259 Pac. 681.)

The numerous other defects pointed out by the appellants as [560]*560being in or omitted from the amended petition, including allegations as to corporate existence and trust relations, were not defects making the amended petition demurrable, and the rulings of the trial court thereon were correct.

Another point urged by appellants was the refusal of the trial court to postpone the hearing of defendants’ motion to take the case from the calendar of the court because the first motion day under supreme court rule 28 (now 45) was March 6, after the filing of notice of trial date was served on defendants on January 29, 1934, for trial on February 2, 1934. Defendants urge that under rule 45 of this court no motion can stand for hearing before the first motion.day following the fifth day after the filing of the same, which would be March 6, 1934, and that the court erred in ruling on these motions on February 2, 1934, and commencing the trial of the case on that day. Such a construction of rule 45 is not consistent with the preceding and subsequent rules showing the direct intent and purpose of the rules was not to delay the hearing of motions, but to require an expeditious hearing of all motions. The construction contended for by appellants would be out of harmony with the statute on this same subject, R. S. 60-2932, which is as follows:

“Action shall be triable on the issues of fact in ten days after the issues are made up. Issues of law and motions may be tried by the court or judge in term time or vacation, at such times as the court or judge may fix, after reasonable notice, which shall not be less than three days.”

The same contention was made later in the case with reference to the hearing of the motion of plaintiff to confirm the sale of the property made by the sheriff. The sale was made on June 5, 1934. Notice was served on defendants on June 21, 1934, to hear this motion two days later, or June 23. At that time the court declined to hear the motion because of the time of the notice being too short, but set the hearing for June 27, at which time it was heard, and the sale was then confirmed over the objection of the defendants, who argue and claim that it could not properly have been heard under the rule of this court until September 17, 1934, which was the first motion day after the service of the notice. Such was not a proper construction of the rule or the requirement of the statute.

Appellants insist that the certificate of the notary public to the depositions used by plaintiff in the trial does not comply with R. S. 60-2825 nor R: S. 60-2842 and is in violation of R. S. 60-2837. [561]*561Neither the first nor the last of these sections concern the contents of the certificate, and no showing was made outside of the certificate itself as to the requirements of these two sections. R. S. 60-2842 states what the certificate shall contain, and there is no question in this case but that it does contain all that this section requires. The other two sections prescribe the qualifications of the officer taking the deposition and how it shall be taken. These are not matters to be set out in the certificate, If they are disregarded or violated, proof to that effect might be furnished by the party attacking the regularity of the taking of the depositions.

In Minnesota Tribune Co. v. Sway, 137 Kan. 352, 20 P. 2d 490, it was held:

“Our statute (R. S. 60-2842) does not require an officer before whom a deposition is taken to state in his certificate that he is not ‘a clerk or stenographer of either party, or attorney for either party.’ ” (Syl. HI.) (See, also, Tegarden v. Brown, 123 Kan. 603, 256 Pac. 986.)

We find no error in the admission of the evidence contained in the deposition of either of the two witnesses, nor as to the evidence concerning the payment of taxes, nor in the overruling of the demurrer to the evidence of plaintiff^

The trial court made extended findings of fact and followed them with conclusions of law. Appellants contend that the findings were not supported by sufficient evidence and were therefore erroneous. There was, in our judgment, sufficient evidence to support the findings, and the conclusions of law were such as could properly be based thereon.

Appellants contend that the publication of the notice of sheriff’s sale was illegal in not being consecutively published on Wednesday of each week, and in violation of the requirements of the statute authorizing legal publications to be made in daily newspapers (R. S. 64-102), the portion thereof which is here concerned is as follows:

“That all legal publications and notices of whatever kind or character that may by law be required to be published a certain number of weeks or days shall be and they are hereby declared to be legally published when they have been published once each week in a daily newspaper, such publications in such daily papers to be made upon Wednesday or Thursday of each week. . .

The publications were made Wednesday of each of four consecutive weeks and then the fifth publication was made on Thursday, [562]*562presumably on account of the fifth Wednesday being a holiday, May 30. The date of the sale, as stated in each of the publications, was to be June 5, and the publications were made on May 2, 9, 16, 23 and 31, all being on Wednesday except the last, which was on Thursday. Does the section above quoted require that all the publications be on the same day of the week?

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
51 P.2d 35, 142 Kan. 558, 1935 Kan. LEXIS 17, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fidelity-national-bank-trust-co-v-cloninger-kan-1935.