In re All Wyoming Building & Loan Ass'n

32 Pa. D. & C. 62, 1938 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 364
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County
DecidedApril 1, 1938
DocketNo. 2; no. 4275
StatusPublished

This text of 32 Pa. D. & C. 62 (In re All Wyoming Building & Loan Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re All Wyoming Building & Loan Ass'n, 32 Pa. D. & C. 62, 1938 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 364 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1938).

Opinion

MacNeille, J.,

The Germantown Trust Company filed a claim based on an extension agreement executed by the association for $6,763.82, the full [63]*63amount of a deficiency judgment obtained by it as a result of foreclosure proceedings instituted by it on a first mortgage covering premises 5037 Torresdale Avenue, and the Secretary of Banking, in his account, disallowed most of this claim, and we are now considering claimant’s exceptions to the disposition of its claim in the account.

Claimant became the holder of a first mortgage in the sum of $6,000, covering premises 5037 Torresdale Avenue, by assignment, and on February 14, 1929, entered into an extension agreement with the Broad & Wyoming Building & Loan Association, when the latter association was the owner of the premises, the extension agreement containing the usual provisions that the association would guarantee the payment of the principal, interest, and taxes. The Broad & Wyoming Building & Loan Association subsequently merged with the All Wyoming Building & Loan Association. On December 29, 1933, the latter association conveyed the mortgaged premises.

On May 3, 1937, after the Secretary of Banking took possession of the All Wyoming Building & Loan Association, claimant instituted foreclosure proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas No. 2, and on July 6, 1937, the property was bought at sheriff’s sale by claimant for $50.

At the trial it was agreed that the fair market value of the property was $5,000, and claimant at the trial reduced the amount of its claim to $6,300, consisting of $6,000 principal and $300 attorney’s fee.

It is the contention of claimant that it has a valid claim for $6,300, while the receiver contends that claimant must deduct from its deficiency judgment, as established by the sheriff’s sale, the fair market value of the property, to wit, $5,000, and that it cannot recover the attorney’s commission, and that its claim should therefore be limited to $1,000.

In United Security Trust Company Case, 321 Pa. 276, the “bankruptcy rule” was adopted in Pennsylvania in[64]*64stead of the “equity rule”, thereby establishing that a secured creditor, in presenting his claim in insolvency proceedings, must first deduct the value of his collateral.

A case very similar to the one here involved came before the Supreme Court in the case of Strauss v. W. H. Strauss & Co., Inc., et al., 328 Pa. 72, 77, which was decided on November 12, 1937. In that case, a Pennsylvania corporation became insolvent. It had as its largest creditor a bank which held two mortgages as collateral security. The bank foreclosed on one of its mortgages in the sum of $50,000 and bought the property at sheriff’s sale for $83.64. The bank made a claim for the full amount of its deficiency judgment and, while the case was decided on other grounds, in the opinion the court used the following language:

“Even under the common law, unaffected by the Deficiency Judgment Act, the receivers, as representatives of the creditors of the insolvent corporation, could have shown the value of the collateral held by the bank without being bound by the price obtained at the sheriff’s sale. It was pointed out in Beaver County Building and Loan Association v. Winowich, 323 Pa. 483, 490n, and cases there cited, that the price realized at such a sale was not conclusive of valuation as between the mortgagee and other creditors of the mortgagor or between the mortgagee and third persons generally.”

It is apparent, therefore, that in the above decision it was specifically held that in a claim against an insolvent corporation, without regard to the deficiency act, the receivers, regardless of the price obtained at the sheriff’s .sale, are entitled to have deducted from the amount of the claim the value of the property bought at sheriff’s sale.

Similarly, in the case of Beaver County B. & L. Assn. v. Winowich et ux., 323 Pa. 483, in which the Deficiency Judgment Act of January 17, 1934, P. L. 243, was held unconstitutional, and in which the Supreme Court reasserted the general principle as between the mortgagor and mortgagee that the price brought at the sheriff’s sale [65]*65is conclusive of the value, yet in a footnote, at page 490, the court said:

“The rule is not necessarily applicable as between the mortgagee and other creditors of the mortgagor, or as between the mortgagee and third persons generally. See Bugh’s Estate, 95 Pa. Superior Ct. 29, 34; Weightman v. Union Trust Co., 208 Pa. 449.”

A similar conclusion was reached by the Orphans’ Court of Philadelphia County in Alexander’s Estate, 31 D. & C. 17, in which case the claim of the Girard Trust Company on a collateral bond of the decedent for a deficiency judgment, where the claimant had bought the property for $50, and it was admitted that the property was worth more than the amount of the obligation, was rejected. And a similar conclusion was reached in the case of Elevated & Subway B. & L. Assn., 31 D. & C. 505.

While a different conclusion was reached by President Judge Davis of this court in the case of In re Luther A. Harr, etc., Receiver of Providence B. & L. Assn. of Phila., C. P. No. 3, June term, 1935, no. 3158, the opinion in that case was filed on October 28, 1937, before the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Strauss v. W. H. Strauss & Co., Inc., et al., supra, was handed down.

It has also always been held in proceedings in bankruptcy that the claimant who has purchased the property at sheriff’s sale for a nominal consideration, in which the claimant was mortgagee, must deduct the fair value of the property from the amount that was claimed: Bugh’s Estate, 95 Pa. Superior Ct. 29.

We are, therefore, constrained to hold under the authority of the eases cited above, and more particularly the case of Strauss v. W. H. Strauss & Co., Inc., et al., supra, that since claimant is presenting a claim, not against the mortgagor but against the receiver of an insolvent association, claimant must deduct from the deficiency judgment the fair value of the property which it bought at sheriff’s sale for a nominal consideration, and [66]*66that, therefore, the sum of $5,000 must be deducted from the amount of its claim.

There is no merit to the contention made on behalf of claimant that the association is not shown to be insolvent. An examination of the account indicates that the total assets of the association are somewhat over $26,000, and the liabilities to shareholders alone over $63,000. An association is insolvent when, after paying its general creditors, it cannot pay back its shareholders, dollar for dollar, the amount of their contributions: Stone v. Schiller B. & L. Assn. et al., 302 Pa. 544, 552.

Nor is there any merit to claimant’s contention that the Germantown Trust Company is not a secured creditor because the security it held did not belong to the association. As has been pointed out in the case of Alexander’s Estate, supra, there is a difference in that regard between the law applicable to the situation in the bankruptcy courts and in our own courts. The Bankruptcy Act of July 1,1898, 30 Stat. at L. 544, sec. 1, provides that only “a creditor who has security for his debt upon the property of the bankrupt” is required to deduct the value of his security, while our own Insolvency Act of June 4, 1901, P. L. 404, sec.

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Related

Strauss v. W. H. Strauss Co., Inc. (Et Al.)
194 A. 905 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1937)
Stone v. Schiller Building & Loan Ass'n
153 A. 758 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1930)
United Security Trust Company Case
184 A. 106 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1936)
Beaver County Building & Loan Ass'n v. Winowich
187 A. 481 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1936)
Estate of Bugh, Decd. Appeal of Fickinger
95 Pa. Super. 29 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1928)
Weightman v. Union Trust Co.
57 A. 879 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1904)

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Bluebook (online)
32 Pa. D. & C. 62, 1938 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 364, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-all-wyoming-building-loan-assn-pactcomplphilad-1938.