Hootman v. Beatty

293 N.W. 32, 228 Iowa 591
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedJune 18, 1940
DocketNo. 44992.
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 293 N.W. 32 (Hootman v. Beatty) 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
Hootman v. Beatty, 293 N.W. 32, 228 Iowa 591 (iowa 1940).

Opinion

Stiger, J.

We will set out some of the allegations of the petition. William Beatty and his wife, Agnes Beatty, executed and delivered the note and mortgage to Jacob Hootman on April 4, 1917. Mr. Beatty conveyed the mortgaged premises to Agnes Beatty in March 1929. In September 1935, Jacob Hootman, the mortgagee, assigned the' note and mortgage to W. J. Hoot-man. Roy Beatty, a defendant, is a son of William and Agnes Beatty. In consideration of his promise to pay the indebtedness the mortgagee extended the maturity of the debt to April 4, 1922. Roy Beatty, either for himself or as agent for William and Agnes Beatty, made- payments on the principal of the note at intervals from 19.21 to 1937. The petition alleges that the payments on principal of said note'by-said Roy Beatty, either for himself or as agent for William Beatty and-Agnes Beatty, are such'as to prevent the running of the statute of limitations against the bringing of this action on this note and to foreclose the mortgage given to secure the same; that said Roy Beatty did make a new promise in writing to pay said note by paying the payments of principal by check signed by himself, which canceled checks are.now in the possession’of’said Roy Beatty.

The instruments were executed April 4, 1917, and were payable on April 4, 1920. This suit was commenced in 1938:

Code section 11007, subsection 6, provides that actions on written' contracts' must be brought within 10 years after then-causes accrue. Code section 11028 provides that, subject to certain exceptions, no action shall be maintained to foreclose a real estate mortgage after 20 years from.the date thereof.

This suit was barred by the said statutes of limitation unless they were avoided by certain allegations of the petition.

I. Code section- 11018 reads :

“11018. Admission in writing — new promise. Causes of action founded on contract are revived by an admission in writ *594 ing, signed by the party to be charged, that the debt is unpaid, or by a like new promise to pay the same.”

Plaintiff’s first assignment is that the court erred in sustaining the motion to dismiss because the giving of cheeks signed by Roy Beatty was a sufficient acknowledgment of the debt to constitute an admission in writing and a new promise to pay under Code section 11018. We do not agree with this proposition.

Partial payments are not sufficient to bar the statute under the provisions of section 11018. Kleis v. McGrath, 127 Iowa 459, 103 N. W. 371, 69 L. R. A. 260, 109 Am. St. Rep. 396; Hale v. Wilson, 70 Iowa 311, 30 N. W. 739; Parsons v. Carey, 28 Iowa 431.

In Hale v. Wilson, supra, we held that a partial payment indorsed upon a note and signed by the maker was not an acknowledgment of a debt or new promise to pay.

In Kleis v. McGrath, 127 Iowa 459, 462, 103 N. W. 371, 372, 69 L. R. A. 260, 109 Am. St. Rep. 396, the court states:

“It is an accepted doctrine that an acknowledgment of the existence of a debt is allowed to remove the bar of the statute, because such acknowledgment or admission carries with it an implied promise to pay. For that reason the acknowledgment must be express, clear, and direct, for it will not do to infer or imply the acknowledgment, and therefrom imply the promise to pay; thus piling implication upon implication.”

In Koht v. Dean, 220 Iowa 86, 92, 261 N. W. 491, 494, Justice Donegan, speaking for the court, said:

“It is sufficient that an admission that an indebtedness is unpaid is the natural and necessary inference from the writing. ’ ’

Beatty made payments of money to the' mortgagee by checks. A check does not directly or by necessary inference acknowledge that a debt is unpaid. It does not admit there is a further sum due than the amount paid, that is, a check is *595 not an acknowledgment of a continuing unpaid indebtedness. See Henneman v. Taber, 198 Iowa 677, 200 N. W. 218.

II. Section 11028 states that no-action shall’be maintained to foreclose any real-estate mortgage after 20 years from the date thereof “unless the record of such instrument shows that less than ten years have elapsed since the date of maturity of the indebtedness or part thereof, secured thereby, or since the right of action has accrued thereon, or unless the record shows an extension of the maturity of the instrument or of the debt or a part thereof, and that ten years from the expiration of the time of such extension have not yet expired. * * * the date of maturity of any extension of said indebtedness or part thereof, may be shown at any time prior to the expiration of the above periods of limitation by the holder of the debt or the owner or assignee of the instrument filing, an extension agree-, ment, duly acknowledged as the original instrument. was required to be acknowledged, in the office of the recorder where the instrument is recorded, or by noting on the margin of the record of such instrument in the recorder’s office an Extension of the maturity of the instrument or of' the' debt secured,- or any part thereof;” etc. Plaintiff claims that the recorded assignment of the note and mortgage was a sufficient compliance with section 11028 and brought the mortgage within the exceptions of the statute.

Section 11028 prescribes the limitation on foreclosure of “ancient mortgages” and provides the exceptions. Obviously' the assignment of the note and mortgage does not come within' the exceptions. There being no extension of record of the maturity of the debt, and more than 10 years having elapsed since the date of maturity, the action is barred by section 11028.

With reference to plaintiff’s argument under this assignment of error that the checks were written admissions that the debt was unpaid under section 11018 (with which proposition we do not agree), we held in Lackey v. Melcher, 225 Iowa 698, 703, 281 N. W. 225, 227, that section 11018 did not apply to section 11028. The court states:

*596 “ * * * because the exception contained in section 11018 appears in the chapter on limitations of actions under the subtitle ‘General Provisions,’ it applies only to the statute of limitations found under that heading; and that, as the limitation provided .in section 11028 appears under the subtitle ‘Special Limitations,’ it is not subject to the exceptions contained in section 11018, but is subject only to the exceptions contained in section 11028 itself.”

III. The petition alleges that on March 29, 1921, which date is subsequent to the maturity of the note, Roy Beatty wrote the following letter to Jacob Hootman, mortgagee:

“We will let that loan run. You can mark across the back Time extended 2 years at 7 per cent with privilege of paying as before at any interest paying date.

“Will send you that interest in a few days.”

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