Hodges v. Commonwealth Bank & Trust Co.

44 S.W.2d 400
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 2, 1931
DocketNo. 8686
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 44 S.W.2d 400 (Hodges v. Commonwealth Bank & Trust 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
Hodges v. Commonwealth Bank & Trust Co., 44 S.W.2d 400 (Tex. Ct. App. 1931).

Opinion

SMITH, J.

The Commonwealth Bank & Trust Company recovered a money judgment for amounts aggregating $43,900 against T. E. Mumme, and for foreclosure of first liens upon certain lands belonging to Mumme in Bexar, Frio, and Atascosa counities. In the same action J. J. Hodges and associates obtained judgment against Mumme for .$30,718.42 and foreclosure of a junior lien upon the same lands. In pursuance of said judgment, the lands were sold under execution and conveyed by sheriff’s deeds to the Bank & Trust Company for amounts less than the judgment obtained by the latter. Subsequently Hodges and his associates filed motions in the same suit to set aside the sales upon the ground that they were irregularly made at inadequate prices. From an order denying those motions, Hodges and his associates have appealed.

In their first assignment of error, appellants complain of the action of the trial court in overruling their motion to strike out an amended return of the sheriff of Frio county upon the execution under which the land in that county was sold. The original return made by that officer contained a recitation that said land was sold at the “court house door of said Bexar County.” Subsequently, the sheriff upon his own motion made an amended return, correcting said error. It is obvious from the text of the original return, and is conceded by the parties to be a fact, that the sale was máde at the door of the Frio county courthouse, rather than in Bexar county. It is obvious also that this recitation resulted from a typographical error, the effect of which was neutralized by other and controlling recitations in the original return. The amendment of the return was unnecessary, was immaterial, and could not impair the validity of the sale or of the title passed by such sale, if regularly made in fact. Willis v. Smith, 66 Tex. 31, 17 S. W. 247; Sanger Bros. v. Roberts, 92 Tex. 312, 48 S. W. 1; Griggs v. Montgomery (Tex. Civ. App.) 22 S.W.(2d) 688. Appellant’s first assignment of error and the propositions thereunder are overruled.

In the deed by which the several tracts of land involved were conveyed in trust, and in which the lien here foreclosed was reserved, the lands were designated as “tracts,” and each tract was described in bulk by metes and bounds. This same method of description was followed in the judgment as well as in the execution, and order of sale. They were sold 'by the tracts thus designated and described. Appellants placed in evidence a blueprint, on which tract I was divided into separate numbered lots and blocks. The parties made this blueprint the subject of the following agreement upon the trial:

“It is agreed that the blue print attached to the judgment was made at the instance of the parties, J. J. Hodges, et al., after this suit was filed, and was used in the trial of this case without objection.
“It is, further, agreed that the property in Bexar County, as described in the deed of trust by Mumme to Commonwealth Bank & Trust Company, bears a bulk description, and not as described in said blue print, nor by lot numbers, but by continuous metes and bounds, and that likewise the judgment in the case describes the Bexar County property on which liens were foreclosed in favor of the plaintiff bank by continuous metes and bounds, the description being identical with the description contained in the bank’s deed of trust.”

Appellants complain in their second assignment of error that said tract I was sold in bulk, as one tract, whereas, appellants con[402]*402tend, it should have been sold one lot at a time in accordance with the segregation made in said blueprint. We overrule this contention as presented in said assignment and the propositions thereunder. The parties treated the land as one tract or parcel in all their dealings, and appellants therefore cannot complain because the sale was made on that basis.

In one proposition under their second assignment of error, appellants complain of the insufficiency of the notice given them of the sale under execution. It appears that the individual appellants and one of their two attorneys never received any notice from the Sheriff of the time and plage of sale of the land in Bexar county, as required in article 3808, R. S. 1925. That sale Occurred on August 5. The sheriff’s return on the execution showed notice of the sale was published in a newspaper, as required by law, for full twenty days before the sale, and this seems undisputed. The sheriff’s return also recites that notices were mailed to each of appellants in person, and their counsel, full twenty days before the sale. These notices were addressed to the individual appellants in care of their counsel, who testified that the postmarks on the several envelopes carrying said notices bore the date July 23, and were delivered to said counsel on July 24, only eleven days before the date of the sale. It is also in evidence that several of the appellants, as well as one of their counsel, were present at the sale. There is no testimony in the record that appellants or their attorney in charge of this litigation had no actual knowledge of the sale prior to the receipt of the notice given them by the sheriff; the only complaint is, apparently, that the notice given by the sheriff was not delivered, until within eleven days of the date of the sale. The question presented in appellants’ second assignment is, therefore, whether the delajr in the delivery of the notice from the ¿Üeriff is such irregularity, within itself, as to invalidate the sale. On the day' of the sale, but befbre that event, appellants’ counsel protested the sale on that day, and requested and demanded' of appellee that the sale be postponed until the ensuing sale day, September 2, but appellee declined, and the sale proceeded. Appellants protested the sale, and demanded postponement, for the stated reason, that, if' given thirty, days more time, they could raise the money with which to pay off appellee’s judgment and save appellants’ equity in the property. Appellants did not then base their demand upon the specific claim that they had not been given twenty days’ notice of the proposed sale, they did not assert or raise the question of lack of statutory notice, nor did they then, nor do they yet, claim that they had no actual knowledge, for twenty days, of the impending sale. They simply demanded that the sale be postponed to September 2, asserting that by that time they could procure a sale of the property at a price in excess of appellee’s judgment.

We are of the opinion that the mere fact, assuming it to be a fact, that the statutory notice was not delivered to appellants or then-counsel until within eleven days of the sale, does not invalidate the sale as a matter of law. The policy of the law is to sustain execution sales, which may not be set aside because of mere irregularities occurring in the procedure by which those sales are made. The provision for notice to the debtor is not mandatory. The statute does not provide that such sales shall be void in cases of a failure to give such notice, and it is not believed that it was the intention of the Legislature that such sales should be rendered void as a matter of law by a failure to give the prescribed notice. A contrary intention is manifested by the provision in article 3819, R. S. 1925, that the officer making the sale shall be liable in damages to those who may be injured by his failure to give the prescribed notice. Morris v. Hastings, 70 Tex. 26, 7 S. W. 649, 8 Am. St. Rep. 570; Rogers v. Moore (Tex. Civ. App.) 94 S. W. 113; Id., 100 Tex. 220, 97 S. W. 685; Scott v. McGlothlin (Tex. Civ. App.) 30 S.W.(2d) 511 (writ of error granted).

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Bluebook (online)
44 S.W.2d 400, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hodges-v-commonwealth-bank-trust-co-texapp-1931.