First Nat. Bank of Fort Worth v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co.

101 S.W.2d 1062
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 8, 1937
DocketNo. 13475
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 101 S.W.2d 1062 (First Nat. Bank of Fort Worth v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
First Nat. Bank of Fort Worth v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 101 S.W.2d 1062 (Tex. Ct. App. 1937).

Opinion

DUNKLIN, Chief Justice.

This suit was instituted by Harrison H. Morse, as administrator of the estate of John A. Jackson, deceased, against John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, and Ethelene Jackson and Marietta Jackson Scurry, surviving daughters of John A. Jackson, and W. C. Scurry, husband of Marietta Jackson Scurry, also joined as a defendant. The suit was in trespass to try title to a. tract of 201.1 acres of land in Wise and Denton counties.

In a second count in the petition, plaintiff, sought a cancellation of a deed of conveyance of the land made by the deceased to his two daughters, Ethelene Jackson and Marietta Jackson Scurry, defendants, of date December 27, 1933, and duly recorded in Denton county on December 28, 1933, and in Wise county on January 2, 1934, for a recited consideration of $10 (not paid) and love and affection, and subject to a deed of trust on said land, of date June 20, 1931, which was duly recorded in Wise and Denton counties, to secure the grantor’s promissory note in favor of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company in the sum of $10,000, made a first lien, and the balance of $350 on another note originally for $500, payable to H. A. Stutts, made a second lien.

Following are the principal facts alleged in the petition on which plaintiff sought to cancel the conveyance:

At the time John A. Jackson executed the deed to his two daughters, he was wholly insolvent, owing unsecured debts in excess of $25,000, besides the mortgage indebtedness recited above, and did not have property sufficient to pay said debts; and the deed was a voluntary conveyance made for the purpose of hindering, delaying, and defrauding the grantor’s creditors, which purpose was known to the grantees at the time the deed was executed, and therefore the deed was void as to those creditors.

John A. Jackson died on January 11, 1934, in Collin county, Tex., but at that time he was a resident of Tarrant county and in possession of said land. On May 1, 1934, plaintiff was duly appointed administrator of his estate by the county court of Tarrant county and thereafter duly qualified as such. The unsecured debts owing by the deceased at the time of his death, aggregating more than $25,000, have been duly allowed by him as administrator, and [1064]*1064all of them have been filed and approved by the county court sitting in probate.

On August 17, 1934, which was within four months next succeeding his receipt of letters of administration, plaintiff gave notice in writing thereof to the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company at its office in Dallas, Tex., as holder of the $10,000 note executed to it by the deceased. Notwithstanding such notice, said company, on September 4, 1934, proceeded to have the land sold at public auction by a substitute trustee to satisfy that debt, the substitute trustee acting under the powers given by the deed of trust to the original trustee, and at the sale that company became the purchaser of the land and is now claiming title under the deed to it by the substitute trustee, which has been duly recorded.

It was alleged that the conveyance by, the substitute trustee was void because it was made during the pendency of the administration without authority of the probate court and in the absence of allowance of the claim by the administrator and approval by the probate court, as required by statutes in such cases made and provided; and further because it was made by a substitute trustee who was not the president or presiding member or trustee of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company or its attorney in fact, as required by article 1322, Rev.Civ.Statutes, for deeds of conveyance of land by a corporation.

The First National Bank of Fort Worth, independent executor, joined by Maude Chandler Modlin, independent executrix of the last will and estate of D. O. Modlin, deceased, filed a plea of intervention, alleging their due appointment and qualification as such. According to further allegations in the plea, at the time he executed the deed to his daughters, John A. Jackson, deceased, was indebted to D. O. Modlin on two unsecured notes, aggregating some $16,000, which have been duly allowed by the administrator and approved by the probate court, and are now due and unpaid. And when Jackson executed said deed he was indebted to several other unsecured creditors in divers sums, aggregating several thousand dollars, and all of which were due and unpaid at the time of his death and have been duly allowed and approved by the probate court in accordance with statutory requirements. Interveners sought a cancellation of thé deed on all the grounds alleged in plaintiff’s petition, which were specifically repeated.

The trial court sustained a general demurrer to plaintiff’s petition- and also to the plea of intervention and dismissed both pleas after those litigants had declined to amend, and they have prosecuted an appeal from that judgment.

The deed to the Life Insurance Company under foreclosure proceedings was executed by O. V. Bennett as substitute trustee, under appointment by J. FI. Magee, assistant treasurer of the Life Insurance Company after resignation of Fred P. Flayward, the original trustee named in the deed of trust.

Article 1322, Rev.Civ.Statutes, reads as follows: “Any corporation may convey lands by deed, sealed with the common seal of the corporation, and signed by the president or presiding member or trustee of said corporation, or in common form without seal by its attorney in fact where the instrument constituting such attorney in fact is executed in said manner first mentioned. Such deed, when acknowledged by such officer er attorney in fact to be the act of the corporation, or proved in the manner prescribed for other conveyances of lands, may be recorded in like manner and with the same effect as other deeds.”

'It is insisted that the deed made by the substitute trustee to the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company -under the foreclosure proceedings was void, since the appointment of the substitute trustee was an incident to. the conveyance made by him to the company, and therefore it was required that it be made by the same authority necessary to a deed by the corporation to land.

We believe that contention is without merit. It is manifest that the provisions of article. 1322, Rev.Civ.Statutes, apply only to deeds by a corporation. Furthermore, by article 1323, as amended by Acts 1927, c. 235, § 1 (Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 1923), it is specifically provided that a majority of the board of directors or trustees are competent “to transact all business of the corporation.” The provisions of the deed of trust in question, authorizing appointment of a substitute trustee, are not set out in the pleadings. In order to show equitable grounds for cancellation, it was incumbent on the pleaders to negative every fact reasonably supposable that would have shown a valid appointment of the [1065]*1065substitute trustee. In the pleadings of both appellants there is an absence of any allegation that the board of directors of the Life Insurance Company did not authorize and empower J. H. Magee, assistant treasurer of the company, to appoint O. V. Bennett the substitute trustee, and in the absence of any showing that the deed of trust contained any provision denying the right to appoint a substitute trustee in the manner he was appointed, as was true in some of ■ the cases cited by appellants, such as Michael v. Crawford, 108 Tex. 352, 359, 193 S.W.

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Related

John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance v. Morse
124 S.W.2d 330 (Texas Supreme Court, 1939)
Broach v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co.
122 S.W.2d 363 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1938)
Ibanez v. State
118 S.W.2d 405 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1938)
Guaranty Building & Loan Co. v. Keller
104 S.W.2d 889 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1937)

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Bluebook (online)
101 S.W.2d 1062, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/first-nat-bank-of-fort-worth-v-john-hancock-mut-life-ins-co-texapp-1937.