Life Ins. Co. of Virginia v. Nolan

159 So. 583, 181 La. 357, 1935 La. LEXIS 1492
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 7, 1935
DocketNo. 32800.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 159 So. 583 (Life Ins. Co. of Virginia v. Nolan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Life Ins. Co. of Virginia v. Nolan, 159 So. 583, 181 La. 357, 1935 La. LEXIS 1492 (La. 1935).

Opinions

ROGERS, Justice.

The Life Insurance Company of Virginia sued to foreclose a mortgage against Joseph N. Nolan. The Louisiana National Bank, as a subsequent mortgage holder, intervened in the suit, and alleged that its mortgages primed plaintiff’s mortgage, because plaintiff’s mortgage had perempted for lack of rein *360 scription within the prescribed time. The court below rendered a judgment in favor of intervener, and plaintiff has appealed.

The facts are not disputed. On February 19, 1923, Joseph N. Nolan borrowed $20,000 from the Gulf Finance & Securities Company, and, in order to secure the loan and the interest thereon, granted in favor of the lender a mortgage on certain real property in the city' of Baton Rouge. The mortgage was filed for record on February 20,1923, and was recorded in mortgage book 97, folio 350, of the parish records.

Subsequent to the execution of the mortgage, it was discovered that several of the interest notes executed by Nolan and described in the original instrument were incorrect, and by another notarial act executed on February 18,1924, the parties acknowledged the mortgage and made the necessary corrections therein. This act was filed for record on February 19, 1924, and recorded in mortgage book 113, folio 15, of the parish records.

The mortgage was reinscribed on April 3, 1933, in mortgage book 248, folio 263, and, again, on October 30, 1933, in special mortgage book (provided for by Act No. 50 of 1924) No. 7, folio 499, of the parish records.

Subsequent to the date of the execution by Joseph N. Nolan of the mortgage in favor of the Gulf Finance & Securities Company, Nolan granted four mortgages on the same and other property on the dates and for the amounts as follows, viz.: November 23, 1923; $13,700; November 13, 1926, $5,000; March 24, 1931, $3,000; and December 14, 1932, $1,-144.19. These mortgages and the notes scouted thereby became the property of the Louisiana National Bank, the intervener herein.

The last principal note, which was for $12,-000, of the series of notes secured by the mortgage granted by Joseph N. Nolan in favor of the Gulf Finance & Securities Company became due on February 1, 1933, and was not paid at maturity; and this suit was filed on July 18, 1933, by the Life Insurance Company of Virginia, which had-acquired the mortgage and the notes secured thereby, to foreclose the mortgage for the nonpayment of that note and the accrued interest.

Appellant contends that the judgment of the district court is erroneous for any one of the following reasons, viz.:

First. The law of prescription in force at the time the suit was filed (Civ. Code, art. 3369, as amended and re-enacted by Act No. 50 oj! 1924) governs rather than the law which was in force at the time the mortgage was granted (Civ. Code, art. 3369, as amended and re-enacted by Act No. 227 of 1918).

Second. In the alternative, should it be held that the Civ. Code, art. 3369, as amended and re-enacted by Act No. 227 of 1918, is controlling, then the reinscription was timely under the provisions of that statute.

Third. Irrespective of whether Act No. 227 of 1918 or Act 50 of 1924 applies, the notarial act of acknowledgment and correction, filed February 19, 1924, constituted a. reinseription of the original mortgage, and the delays run from that date.

We think that the reason lastly assigned by appellant is sound, and hence it will not be necessary to discuss the other two.

*362 The notarial act of acknowledgment or correction was executed hy the mortgagor and. mortgagee on February 18, 1924. It was filed in the clerk’s office the next day, and was -duly recorded in the parish records. The instrument is complete in itself. It designates the parties to the original act of mortgage; sets forth the date of the act and the name of the notary before whom it was executed. It recites the date of recordation, and specifies the book and folio in which the recordation was made. It fully describes the notes, both principal and interest, secured by the original mortgage, sets forth their amounts and their maturities, and gives a detailed description of the property mortgaged. In short, the inscription of the instrument sets out all the essentials ot the original mortgage as completely as if the mortgage itself had been re-inscribed.

It was not necessary, as contended by appellee, that the original act of mortgage should have been recopied in its entirety in the mortgage records, since the act of acknowledgment and correction, which was recorded in full, contained all the substantial recitals of the original act of mortgage.

The law on this point is concisely stated in the syllabus of Poutz v. Reggio, 25 La. Ann. 643, as follows, viz.: “It has never been held that, to make a valid inscription of a conventional mortgage, an entire copy of the authentic act in which it is granted should be spread upon the public record. The object of registration is public notice, with reasonable certainty, of the substantial particulars of the mortgage; and when this is done, the purpose of the law is satisfied.”

The reinscription of the mortgage which was found to be valid in the cited ease was as follows, viz.: “Auguste Reggio, in favor of Edmond Reggio, as per act passed before Gilbert Leonard, then Parish Judge and ex-officio notary public in and for this parish, on the first day of April, 1844, to secure full and punctual payment of the sum of $14,899.79, being the share or portion accruing to said minor from the succession of Nicholas Reggio and Caroline Jorda, his deceased father and mother, specially mortgaged and hypothecated in favor of said minor.” (Then follows a description of the mortgaged property.) The mortgage, as shown hy the opinion of the court, was not a tutor’s mortgage, but was a' special mortgage granted and vendor’s lien reserved to secure the minor’s share of the purchase price of a certain plantation which was sold to effect a partition among the heirs.

The declaration contained in article 3369 of the Civil Code to the effect that the registry of a mortgage ceases if the inscription has not been renewed in the manner in which it was first made was also contained in article 3333 of the Civil Code of 1825.

In Shepherd v. Cotton Press, 2 La. Ann. 100, it was held under the provisions of article 3333, that: “Whatever be the form of the re-inscription, the description of the property mortgaged is one of its essential requisites, and was entirely omitted on that occasion. The reference to previous mortgages does not cure that defect.” And it was contended in the cited case of Poutz v. Reggio, that under the decision in Shepherd v. Cotton Press.a reinscription is invalid if the entire act in which the mortgage is contained is not copied in full. But it was held in Poutz v. Reggio *364 that the contention was not sound, and that it was not necessary to recopy the entire act of mortgage in order to effect a valid reinscription of the instrument.

On several occasions this court has decided it was not indispensable to the validity of the inscription that the entire act of mortgage should be copied in the mortgage records. Succession of Pate, 6 La. Ann. 241; Rogers v. Chandler, 6 La. Ann. 349, which were cited with approval in Poutz v.

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159 So. 583, 181 La. 357, 1935 La. LEXIS 1492, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/life-ins-co-of-virginia-v-nolan-la-1935.