First National Bank v. Ashmead

23 Fla. 379
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJune 15, 1887
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 23 Fla. 379 (First National Bank v. Ashmead) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
First National Bank v. Ashmead, 23 Fla. 379 (Fla. 1887).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Raney

delivered the opinion of the court:

Our statute provides that all instruments of writing made for the purpose of securing the payment of money, whether such instruments be from the debtor to the creditor, or from the debtor to some third person in trust for the creditor, shall be deemed mortgages, and be subject to the same rules of foreclosure, restrictions and forms as are or may be prescribed by law in relation to mortgages ; and that a mortgage shall be held in our courts to be a specific lien on property for a specific object. McClellan’s Digest, pp. 765, 766. Independent of this statute, even parol evi. dence is admissible in equity to show that a deed of conveyance, absolute upon its face, was intended as a mortgage, and where it is shown that such a conveyance has been^ executed to secure the payment of money, equity will treat it as a mortgage. The court looks beyond the terms of the instrument to the real-transaction, or what was intended to be effected by the parties, and any evidence, whether written or oral, tending to show this, is admissible. The admission of oral testimony for such purpose is not a violation of the rule ivhich precludes such admission for the purpose of varying or contradicting the terms of a written instrument; that rule has reference to the language [385]*385of which the instrument is the repository, but this permits an inquiry into the objects of the parties in executing and receiving the instrument, and equity exercises its jurisdiction to carry out such object and to prevent fraud and imposition, and to promote justice. Peugh vs. Davis, 96 U. S., 336 ; Pearce vs. Robinson, 13 Cal., 116. Our statute and the decisions of this court upon it fully establish the rule in favor of such admissibility. Lindsay vs. Matthews, 17 Fla., 585 ; Shear vs. Robinson, 18 Fla., 379 ; Franklin vs. Ayer, 22 Fla., 654. In Shear vs. Robinson a deed of conveyance of a married woman’s separate statutory property was held to be a mortgage. . ;

Parol evidence is admissible to connect papers, which, together, constitute a deed and. defeasance or mortgage, and to show that an instrument bearing a subsequent date to the deed was either executed at the .same time, or that its terms and substance were in fact agreed upon at the same time, and, though subsequently reduced to writing, constitute a part of the same transaction with the deed. Franklin vs. Ayer, supra; Jones on Mortgages, §248. When the instruments connect themselves and show that the purpose was to secure the payment of money, no parol proof is necessary, even if it can be said to be admissible. Franklin vs. Ayer, supra, and 31 Penn. St., 131, 295.

In Lindsay vs. Matthews, supra, where the deed was not from the debtor, it was held that the words “whether such instruments of writing be from the debtor to the creditor or from the debtor to some third person,” in our statute, are descriptive of certain instruments embraced within the act, but that such words do not affect its application to any instrument conveying property for the purpose of securing the payment of money. The doctrine of Carr vs. Carr, 52 N. Y., 251, is that whenever property is trans[386]*386ferred, no matter in what form or by what conveyance as a security for a debt, the transferee takes merely as mortgagee, and has no other rights or remedies than the law accords to mortgagees. See also Hooper’s Appeal, 64 Penn. StM 315.

It is settled that in this State a mortgage does not convey the legal title of land out of the mortgagor, but only creates a specific lien on the property. McMahan vs. Russell, 17 Fla., 698 ; Berlack vs. Halle, 21 Fla., 236 ; Franklin vs. Ayer, et al„ 22 Fla., 654. See also Brinkman vs. Jones, 44 Wis., 498. This is no less true where the method of mortgaging is an absolute deed of conveyance, made either to the creditor or a third person, with the defeasance resting simply upon verbal proof or upon written evidence connecting itself with the deed or capable of being so connected by oral evidence, than it is as to an ordinary formal mortgage. Any other view would practically ignore the statute.

As a further premise to the conclusion we reach in the case before us we may remark that a homestead is the subject of mortgage by the husband and wife in Florida. Patterson vs. Randall and Taylor, 15 Fla., 337 ; Hart vs. Sanderson’s Administrators, 18 Fla., 103. See also Miller vs. Marx, 55 Ala., 336 ; Scott vs. Simmons, 70 Ala., 357, which affirm a similar view as existing in Alabama.

Looking at the pleadings before us, which are fully set forth in the statement of the case, we find that before and at the time of the execution of the deed of conveyance, Mrs. Ashmead was informed by her husband and the attorneys of the complainant, that the deed was intended and was prepared to be executed by her husband and herself for the purpose of securing the indebtedness mentioned in the agreement, and that she executed said deed with full information of the contents of the agreement and for said [387]*387purpose and intent. This allegation of the bill is not denied by the plea. The object of the parties in making the deed cannot, therefore, be questioned ; it was ■ made to secure the payment of money, and is a mortgage. Nor is there in view of the pleadings any room for the contention of counsel for appellee, that there was no joint consent of the husband and wife, or of the wife with her husband, to the creation of a mortgage lien on the property. It cannot be denied, in face of the pleadings, that both before and at the time of the execution of the deed of conveyance Mrs. Ash-mead was informed by her husband and the attorneys of the complainant that the deed was intended and was prepared to be executed by her husband and herself for the purpose of securing the indebtedness mentioned in the agreement; nor that she executed such deed with full information of the contents of the agreement and of said purpose and intent. If she had full information of the contents of the agreement, and of the fact that the deed was intended to secure the indebtedness mentioned in it, she, by her execution of it with her husband, intended in fact nothing more nor less than the making of a deed of conveyance of the homestead property to' secure the indebtedness mentioned in said agreement, upon the terms stated in the latter instrument.

The defence made by the plea is that the property mortgaged was at the time the deed was made, and still continues to be, the homestead of Mr. Ashmead, occupied as such then, and still by himself, his wife and their children. The Constitution in force at the date of the deed provided that a homestead could not be then alienated without the consent of the husband and wife. So far as the deed is concerned, it is not denied that it is in due form as an absolute deed of conveyance, as well as to the separate acknowledgment of the wife, as otherwise. No court which [388]*388has permitted the introduction of either parol or written evidence to show that an absolnte deed was made to secure a debt, and was, in effect, a mortgage, has.ever regarded it as an attempt either to supply any deficiency in' a separate acknowledgment, or to change or add to the language of any part of the. deed. This is clearly shown not to be the case, by the authorities we have cited. There is nothing of the kind in any case we have seen, and certainly nothing in those cited by counsel for appellee. The ground upon which a separate acknowledgment of a married woman can be effectually assailed,are well known, and need not be commented on here.

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Bluebook (online)
23 Fla. 379, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/first-national-bank-v-ashmead-fla-1887.