Garner v. Meredith

229 Iowa 224
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedOctober 22, 1940
DocketNo. 45294
StatusPublished

This text of 229 Iowa 224 (Garner v. Meredith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Garner v. Meredith, 229 Iowa 224 (iowa 1940).

Opinion

Stiger, J.

Melker J. Garner died in 1927 leaving a will devising tbe real estate involved in this suit to his wife Elizabeth Garner for life with remainder to his four children, Lowell Garner (plaintiff), Myrle Meredith, Dora James, and Elizabeth Simms, in equal shares subject, however, to a contract between Melker J. Garner and wife and Lowell Garner and Myrle Meredith which contract was incorporated in the subsequent will of the testator.

[226]*226The testator was surety on notes executed by Albert J ames, husband of his daughter, Dora James. The contract stated that Lowell Garner and Myrle Meredith, for a consideration, had assumed and agreed to pay said notes and such of the notes which had been paid by them or on which they remained liable at the time of the distribution of Mr. Garner’s estate should be treated as an advancement to Dora James, daughter of testator, and “be deducted from her share in said first party’s estate, and the share of each of the two parties, (Lowell R. Garner and Myrle J. Meredith) increased by a like amount.” The last paragraph of the contract reads:

“It is the intention of the said Melker J. Garner to subsequently execute a will which shall contain all of the provisions of this contract with reference to charging as an advancement against the share of the said Dora M. James, all said payments or liability for surety debts by the parties to this contract, to or from the said Albert P. James, but that it is deemed advisable in order to malee the same effective to recite the same in this contract if for any reason said will shall not be made, to the end that equal distribution may be made among the children of said first party of his estate.”

Testator’s subsequent will contained the provisions of the contract. Elizabeth Garner was deceased at the time this suit was commenced.

For a proper understanding of the issues in the partition suit, it is necessary to make a preliminary statement of the fact situation at the time it was commenced. Defendant Carrie Sparks originally owned one of the James notes endorsed by Melker J. Gamer in the sum of $1,500. When this note became due in 1931, Lowell Garner, pursuant to the provisions of the will, executed on February 1,1931, a new note to Carrie Sparks in the sum of $1,500, due in one year. On March 1, 1933, Lowell Garner was indebted to the defendant First State Bank of Lynn-ville, Iowa, and, on said date, he and his mother, Elizabeth Garner, executed to the bank a note in the sum of $900 due in one year, identified as Exhibit B. Lowell Garner was a tenant of Mrs. Garner. On January 4, 1934, Mrs. Garner delivered to the bank a rent note in the sum of $650, which represented cash rent to be paid by Lowell Garner, and the lease. On the [227]*227same day, the cashier of the bank made the following endorsement on the back of the note: “1-4-34 — $650.00.” This endorsement represented the amount of the rent note, the bank claiming it was a credit on the principal of the note on condition that it was paid. Only $70 was paid on this note by the tenant.

On February 23, 1934, the $1,500 note owned by the defendant Mrs. Sparks was two years past due and in the possession of her attorney, George E. Campbell, who was attempting to collect it. The $900 note owned by the bank was due March 1, 1934. The interested parties entered into negotiations for the purpose of securing an extension of said indebtedness of Lowell Garner on terms satisfactory to the two creditors, H. C. Korf acting as attorney for Lowell Gamer, Elizabeth Garner and the bank, and Mr. Campbell representing Mrs. Sparks. The result of the conversation was that Lowell Garner, on February 23, 1934, executed and delivered to Elizabeth Garner the following instruments: A note for $1,500 due in three years; a note for $900 due in one year, and a mortgage on an undivided one-third interest in the real estate received from his father. Mrs. Garner, on March 31, 1934, assigned the note for $1,500 to Mrs. Sparks, the $900 note to the bank, and the mortgage to both assignees. This mortgage was subject to a prior mortgage for $1,000 executed by plaintiff and owned by defendants George and Earl Renaud.

Mr. Korf prepared the instruments. In drawing the $900 note, he made the following endorsement:

“2-25-34 This note is herewith credited $ 75.00 and also “ $650.00”

This endorsement was identical with the endorsement made on the prior $900 note, Exhibit B, by the bank’s cashier.

The $75 credit is not material to this case. That part of the assignment of the mortgage referring to the bank’s note reads:

“For Value Received, I, Elizabeth Briggs, formerly Elizabeth Garner, do hereby sell and assign unto the First State Bank, Lynnville, Iowa, a certain note signed by Lowell R. [228]*228Garner, dated February 23, 1934, due one year after date, for Nine Hundred Dollars ($900.00) subject to credits shown thereon,” eta. (Italics supplied.)

Under a consent interlocutory decree tbe real estate was sold .and the mortgage liens transferred to tbe proceeds in the bands of tbe referee.

Appellee, Carrie Sparks, concedes that as tbe bank’s note matures first it is entitled to be first paid out of tbe common security in tbe amount found due.

There were two main issues presented by tbe pleadings: (A). Was the endorsement of $650 on tbe note conditional on tbe payment of tbe rent note as claimed by tbe-bank and, if so, was Mrs. Sparks, under all the circumstances, bound by tbe conditional credit? (B). Tbe first mortgage of $1,000 owned by tbe Renauds conveyed tbe undivided interest of Lowell Garner, mortgagor, in tbe real estate ‘ ‘ as received by me under tbe will of my father.” Tbe second mortgage which secured tbe notes of Mrs. Sparks and tbe bank conveyed an undivided one-third interest of Lowell Garner in decedent’s real estate. Mrs. Sparks contends that plaintiff received a three-eighths interest under the will of decedent which was conveyed by tbe first mortgage, and, as tbe first mortgagees bad a lien on all of Garner’s interest in tbe real estate and she only had a lien on bis undivided one-tbird interest, tbe first mortgagees should, under tbe doctrine of marshaling securities, first exhaust tbe interest in tbe real estate on which they alone bad a lien. Plaintiff claims be received an undivided one fourth of tbe real estate under tbe will and one half of the undivided one-fourth interest devised to Dora James under tbe decree in partition.

Tbe trial court found and decreed that the bank accepted tbe rent note as a cash payment of $650 on tbe $900 note and deducted said cash payment from tbe principal. Tbe bank appealed from this adjudication. Tbe court also held that plaintiff received a three-eighths interest in tbe real estate under tbe will of decedent and that Mrs. Sparks was entitled to a marshaling of securities as prayed. Plaintiff .appealed from this part of the decree. We agree with tbe conclusions reached by the trial court.

I. We will first consider the appeal of the bank and [229]*229the endorsement of $650 on the two $900 notes given the bank by Lowell Garner. The cashier who made the endorsement of $650 on the first note testified “It was understood” that the credit was given on condition it was paid and that only $70 had been paid on the rent note. The plaintiff, Lowell Garner, gave the same testimony.

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Bluebook (online)
229 Iowa 224, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/garner-v-meredith-iowa-1940.