Holt v. Guaranty & Loan Co.

296 P. 852, 136 Or. 272
Procedural entryThis page is a short order in Holt v. Guaranty & Loan Co.. Read the opinion of the Court — 136 Or. 272
Oregon Supreme Court·Decided March 10, 1931·Published

Opinion

BROWN, J.

The law of this state provides:

“A lien upon real or personal property, other than that of a judgment or decree, whether created by mortgage or otherwise, shall be foreclosed, and the property adjudged to be sold to satisfy the debt secured thereby by a suit”: Oregon Code 1930, § 6-501.

In a case such as the one at issue, where ownership of pledged property is involved, the pledgor insolvent, and its managing officer absent from the state, it is peculiarly fitting that equity be invoked. For, as written by an eminent author:

“Jurisdiction exists over pledges of chattels or of things in action; the pledgee may enforce his security by a suit for a foreclosure and sale.” 1 Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence (4th Ed.), § 164.

This holding is not affected by Senate Bill No. 117, “authorizing the sale by banks, trust companies and national banking associations of- pledged collateral without judicial proceedings,” enacted at the-regular session of the Thirty-Sixth Legislative Assembly.

[281]*281. As shown by our statement, defendant Bales filed a demurrer challenging the right of the plaintiff to maintain this foreclosure proceeding, and asserted that it was her duty as the pledgee of the collateral note to collect all sums as they became due thereon and apply the proceeds on the indebtedness until paid, “and return the balance to the pledgor.” It will be noted that the pledgor was the insolvent defendant company, and that its president, the person who pledged the note, had long since departed from the confines of Oregon. However, following the overruling of the demurrer, this defendant answered over, and earnestly seeks affirmative relief at the hands of equity.

With relation to a suit or action to forclose a pledge, the authors of Corpus Juris say:

“Where the debt or obligation for which the property is pledged matures and is unpaid, or the pledgor otherwise defaults, the pledgee, regardless of any legal or summary remedy he may have, such as the right to sell without judicial process, may, at his election, file a bill in equity for the foreclosure of the pledge and a sale of the pledged property under an order of court; and in some jurisdictions this remedy is either expressly or impliedly authorized by statute. Eesort to this remedy is particularly appropriate where there are conflicting claims as to the ownership and right of possession of the pledge. * * * The advantages of such a foreclosure are that it concludes the rights of all parties in interest, and prevents any recourse against the pledgee for violation of his duties to the pledgor or to third persons, and that it enables the pledgee to buy at the sale”: 49 C. J., § 276, “Pledges.”

Jones on Collateral Securities (3d Ed.), § 655, thus states the rights of the pledgee to recover on negotiable paper held as security:

“While the pledgee himself cannot, without express authority for this purpose, sell commercial paper [282]*282pledged as collateral, yet a court of equity may, at least under special circumstances, order a judicial sale of it. ‘But the question of the right of a pledgee to come into court, and have a decree for a judicial sale of the pledge, is an entirely different question. This was always a well-recognized head of equitable jurisdiction, even where the pledgee or mortgagee had a right to sell the property. The sale being under the direction and control of the court, it has the power, as it is its duty, to see to it that the property shall not be sacrificed; and hence such a sale is not liable to the evils or abuses to which a sale by the party himself is subject. Just when and under what circumstances a court would or should order a sale of commercial paper or other collateral of similar character it is not necessary to consider. The right to do so, at least under special circumstances, is undoubted. * * * ’ Under special circumstances, a pledgee of negotiable paper may resort to a court of equity for a sale of the security, and may foreclose the pledge in the same manner and with like effect as if the transaction were a mortgage; and it is rather intimated that the same rule would apply in case of an ordinary pledge of such paper.”

The testimony shows that the endorsement and delivery of the note by defendant Bales, the payee therein, to G-uaranty and Loan Company, was made when Haradon was president of the loan company, and that, so far as third persons are concerned, it was made for the benefit of that company. It further shows that both the note and the mortgage securing it were thereafter assigned to this plaintiff.

It has long been the law of this jurisdiction that the lawful assignment of a negotiable promissory note payment of which is secured by a mortgage carries with it the mortgage: Roberts v Sutherlin, 4 Or. 219; Barringer v. Loder, 47 Or. 223 (81 P. 778) ; Roth v. Troutdale Land Co., 83 Or. 500 (162 P. 1069); U. S. Nat. Bank v. Holton, 99 Or. 419 (195 P. 823). And, as Dr. [283]*283Andrew C. Smith, aptly said when testifying on behalf of the plaintiff, “The Guaranty and Loan Company was Haradon, and Haradon was the * * * Loan Company.”

The plaintiff testified that she was in the habit of transacting her own business, and that Haradon and her husband were brothers-in-law. She identified a cashier’s check drawn on the West Coast Bank for $5,000 as her property, and testified that it represented $5,000 that she had received from her father’s life insurance in 1899. She testified that for a while she had it invested in certain mortgages in Eastern Oregon, but withdrew it and placed it in a savings account with the West Coast Bank, and ultimately, being in search of a safe loan at a higher rate of interest than paid by the bank, withdrew it from the bank and loaned it to defendant Guaranty and Loan Company. She testified that, prior to making the loan to the defendant company, she was informed and believed that she was receiving triple security therefor; that Haradon, the president of the company, pointed out to her that her security would consist, first, of the Stewart note and mortgage; second, of the Bales endorsement thereof, and, third, the endorsement of Guaranty and Loan' Company. She swore that when she accepted ithe Stewart note and mortgage as security for her loan, she knew nothing of any wrong or fraud in relation to the transaction; and that it was not until months after-wards that she learned that the loan company had transferred the instruments to her -without right.

B. B. Baird, bookkeeper and treasurer of defendant Guaranty and Loan Company in October, 1926, testified that the company received and deposited to its credit in the Bank of California the proceeds of the check for $5,000. The testimony abundantly shows that the plain[284]*284tiff loaned to the company the $5,000 that was received by it; and there is no testimony in the record that establishes, or tends to establish, that she had any information or knowledge as to the right of the Guaranty and Loan Company to pledge this note and mortgage as security for the loan. As stated by the bookkeeper and treasurer, the defendant company was engaged in the transaction of business during all of October, 1926, and did not become insolvent until early in 1927.

In Harth v. Pollock, 97 Or. 663 (193 P.

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Holt v. Guaranty & Loan Co., 296 P. 852, 136 Or. 272 (Or. 1931).

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