First National Bank of Mobile v. Pope

149 So. 2d 781, 274 Ala. 395, 1963 Ala. LEXIS 482
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedFebruary 7, 1963
Docket1 Div. 944, 945, 946
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 149 So. 2d 781 (First National Bank of Mobile v. Pope) 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
First National Bank of Mobile v. Pope, 149 So. 2d 781, 274 Ala. 395, 1963 Ala. LEXIS 482 (Ala. 1963).

Opinions

MERRILL, Justice.

The original bill of complaint alleged the procurement of money from the complainant, The First National Bank of Mobile, by Douglas H. Pope, deceased, by the exercise of fraud and the investment by Pope of some of the money so fraudulently obtained in the payment of premiums on life insurance policies totaling $80,000, payable to his wife, Lavada H. Pope, and the use by Pope of some of the money as payment of the purchase price of a homestead, which passed on his death to his wife.

Lavada H. Pope, Edwin ■ C. Wilcox, Harold Donald Percy and The Merchants National Bank of Mobile were made respondents to the bill. The bill alleged that Wilcox and Percy each claimed an interest in the proceeds of the insurance policies and in the real property purchased as a homestead.

The bill prayed that the claims of all parties to the suit in and to the proceeds of the insurance policies and in and to the real property acquired as a homestead be determined and enforced.

Wilcox and Percy each filed an answer which was made a cross bill wherein substantially all of the allegations of the com[398]*398plaint were admitted except those to the effect that all of the premiums on the insurance policies and all payments on the homestead were paid from money fraudulently obtained from the complainant bank.

. Each of the cross-complainants alleged that a portion of the premiums paid on the insurance policies and some of the payments on the homestead came from moneys fraudulently obtained by Pope from him.

The.demurrer interposed by the respondent Lavada H. Pope to the original bill and the demurrers interposed by her to each of the cross bills were sustained.

The complainant and each of the cross-complainants appealed to this court. We affirmed. First National Bank of Mobile v. Pope, 270 Ala. 202, 117 So.2d 174.

The complainant and cross-complainants were given the right to amend and on return of the case to the circuit court the complainant bank amended its bill and each of -the cross-complainants amended his .cross bill. Demurrers interposed by Lavada ,H. Pope were sustained to the complaint as thus amended'and to each of the amended .cross bills. ,The( complainant and the cross-complainants again amended their respective pleadings. . The trial court thereafter sustained .demurrer of-Lavada H. Pope to . the. complaint as- last amended and sustained her demurrers to the respective cross bills .of Wilcox and Percy as last amended and - dismissed the bill as last amended and each Of the Cross bills as íast amended. From that decree, the complainant and the cross-'complainants have appealed.

We are required by statute, Tit. 13, § 28, Code 1940, to review the case anew without regard to the former decision. Lucas v. Lucas, 258 Ala. 515, 64 So.2d 70.

The averments added by way of amendments following the decision on the first appeal seek to show that a fiduciary relationship existed between the appellants and Douglas H. Pope at the time he secured the loans from the appellants. These added averments, however, are not sufficient to show that relationship except by way of conclusion. The complaint and the cross-complaints, as last amended, when construed most strongly against the pleaders, simply show a relationship of lender and borrower. That relationship is not a fiduciary one. See Restatement Second, Trusts, § 12b; Downey v. Humphreys, 102 Cal.App.2d 323, 227 P.2d 484; Higgins v. Chicago Title & Trust Co., 312 Ill. 11, 143 N.E. 482.

On first appeal, the “fictitious collateral” offered by Pope was not particularly described but the amended bill shows that he merely signed demand notes payable, With interest, to The First National Bank of Mobile, hereinafter called “the Bank,” and produced fictitious invoices representing sales of flour or other commodities to some dealer outside of Mobile, which flour was then supposed to be in transit to the buyer and the buyer was supposed to pay for the flour within thirty days.

Collateral security is defined as a “securh ty given in addition to the direct security, and subordinate to it, intended to guarantee its validity or convertibility or insure its performance; so that, if the direct security fails, the creditor may fall back upon the collateral security. * * * Collateral security, in bank phraseology, means some security additional to the personal obligation of the borrower.” Black’s Law Dictionary, Fourth Edition.

The so-called collateral described in the amended bill did not meet the requirements of the definition. Even if the invoices had been genuine, the Bank would have had nothing to “fall back upon” if the notes were not paid because the Bank had no claim on any of the named purchasers from Pope.

Construing the averments of the amended bill more strongly against the pleader, it becomes apparent that the Bank did not rely on this so-called “collateral security,” but upon Pope’s false representations that he [399]*399was-financially worth more than he-actually was, and was making more sales than he actually was. We further note that the pleadings show a continuous series of loans from the Bank to Pope over a period of nine and one-half years but no payments on any notes are alleged except as to the first note of $5,000 at the beginning of his business with the Bank in 1949, yet in that period of time, his indebtedness to it grew from zero to over $175,000.

The Bank argues here, as on the first appeal, that a constructive trust was created in the proceeds of the insurance and in the homestead in its favor because of the false representations of Pope as to his worth and the amount of business he was doing when he signed the demand notes.

On first appeal, we discussed every case cited to us by appellants to support the application of a constructive trust to the facts. Those cases were: Truelsch v. Northwestern Mut. L. Ins. Co., 186 Wis. 239, 202 N.W. 352, 38 A.L.R. 914; Vorlander v. Keyes, 8 Cir., 1 F.2d 67; Massachusetts Bonding & Ins. Co. v. Josselyn, 224 Mich. 159, 194 N.W. 548; Dayton v. H. B. Claflin Co., 19 App.Div. 120, 45 N.Y.S. 1005; Shaler v. Trowbridge, 28 N.J.Eq. 595; Holmes v. Gilman, 138 N.Y. 369, 34 N.E. 205, 20 L.R.A. 566; Brown v. New York Life Ins. Co., 9 Cir., 152 F.2d 246; Jansen v. Tyler, 151 Or. 268, 47 P.2d 969, 49 P.2d 372; Succession of Onorato, 219 La. 1, 51 So.2d 804, 24 A.L.R.2d 656; Exchange State Bank v. Poindexter, 137 Kan. 101, 19 P.2d 705. These cases fall within one or more of the following classifications :

(1) Where the wrongdoer occupied a fiduciary relationship to the owner of the money;

(2) Where the money or property was taken by a thief or embezzler;

(3) Where a certain use, agreed to in writing, was to be made of the money received but it was used for different purposes;

(4) Where the wife participated in on, had knowledge of her husband’s, fraud.

We said on the first appeal, and that was the crux of our holding:

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First National Bank of Mobile v. Pope
149 So. 2d 781 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1963)

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Bluebook (online)
149 So. 2d 781, 274 Ala. 395, 1963 Ala. LEXIS 482, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/first-national-bank-of-mobile-v-pope-ala-1963.