McWhorter v. Tyson

83 So. 330, 203 Ala. 509, 1919 Ala. LEXIS 28
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedMay 22, 1919
Docket3 Div. 361.
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 83 So. 330 (McWhorter v. Tyson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McWhorter v. Tyson, 83 So. 330, 203 Ala. 509, 1919 Ala. LEXIS 28 (Ala. 1919).

Opinions

SAYRE, J.

The original bill in this cause was filed by appellant, as administrator of the estate of R. S. McWhorter, deceased, seeking to enjoin appellee from selling a plantation in Lowndes county under the power of sale in a mortgage which deceased in his lifetime had made to appellee and to redeem. Appellee’s answer, which was made a cross-bill under the statute, prayed for a decree of foreclosure. The original bill admits an. indebtedness of $4,000, to speak in round numbers; appellee claims the indebtedness secured by the mortgage at. the inception of this controversy amounted to $7,-000, still speaking in round numbers; and the difference of fact between the parties is the difference between these two sums.

The mortgage, executed January 2, 1897, secured the payment of five purchase-money notes for the aggregate sum of $10,000 and interest, payable annually on November 15, 1897 to 1901. Appellee admits that on February 23, 1907, the balance due on this mortgage had been reduced to $4,000. The ’mortgagor had paid interest from year to year, and it is admitted that on November 14, 1904, he made his last payment on the principal, $3,000, leaving a balance of $4,000 then due. This payment satisfied the third of the series of notes above mentioned and a balance due on the second after allowing a payment which had been previously made and credited thereon. Appellant’s intestate, *510 mortgagor, as aforesaid, died in March, 1916, and very soon thereafter this controversy arose. It then developed that appellee had in his possession the notes in question, and that appellant had possession of appellee’s receipt for $3,000 of date November 14, 1904. This situation presents the subject of review.

[1] Appellant relies upon the receipt in his hands and appellee’s admission that the payment thereby witnessed was made as the receipt says it was. Appellee’s theory of the case is that appellant’s intestate came to him on February 23, 1907, desiring a loan of $3,000, and offered the uncanceled notes, which he had received on the occasion of the payment of $3,000, as evidence of the new loan, and proposed to have the mortgage of January 2, 1897, stand as security for the new loan; that he consulted with his attorney on the legal sufficiency of the security thus proposed, and thereupon made the additional loan, of $3,000 which he now proposes to collect by virtue of his mortgage. Appellee has testified in detail to the facts necessary to support his contention; but he is an incompetent witness as to any transaction with, or statement by, the deceased (section 4007 of the Code), and his testimony as to the essential facts of the transaction alleged cannot be considered. Also the attorney with whom he Consulted is dead. However, he was able to show in evidence the stubs of a, check book one of which indicated that on February 23, 1907, he drew a check in favor of appellant’s intestate for $2,500, under which he had set the word “loan,” and another indicated that on the same day he drew a check payable to intestate in the sum of $500, under which he set the words “bal. loan.” Appellant, recognizing the great significance of these stubs and the memoranda thereon, objected to their admission in evidence, .and now urges that they should not be considered.

[2] Several grounds of objections were taken to this stub book, and it may be conceded that it was not admissible except as being In some sort a book of account. The modern authorities hold that—

“The material', form, and construction of the book offered in evidence as a book of original entries are unimportant, provided such book be capable of perpetuating a record of events, and the entries are made in conformity with the general rules governing the admissibility of such entries.” 9 Am. & Eng. Encyc. Law (2d Ed.) p. 917, and cases there cited; 10 R. C. L. p. 1178; Shirley v. Southern Railway, 198 Ala. 102, 73 South. 430.

Appellant does not question the genuineness of the stub book entries. We do not find a^y challenge of the truthfulness of the testimony by which appellee undertook to establish the facts upon which their admissibility, and by the same token their genuineness, depended. Appellant does deny their admissibility as book entries upon the ground that book entries are to be- excluded in the circumstances here shown because they relate to transactions with a deceased person whose estate is interested in the result of the suit. No other possible ground of objection need be considered, for the specification of grounds of objection to evidence must be taken as an admission that the evidence in other respects is legal; otherwise the party objecting might frequently reverse a judgment on a point never decided in the court below, and which, if presented, the other party might have avoided, by rendering it competent by the introduction of other proof. Walker v. Blassingame, 17 Ala. 810; Creagh v. Savage, 9 Ala. 959. Appellee was a competent witness to make the necessary suppletory oath; that is to say, it was competent for him as a witness to state the facts necessary to establish the authenticity of the stub book and the entries therein. Warten v. Black, 195 Ala. 93, 70 South. 758. The court thinks the objection under consideration untenable because one reason for the admission of evidence of this character has always been that the person who made the entries is at the time of the trial disqualified as a witness. Warten v. Black, supra. The stub book and its relevant entries were admissible, under the rule prevailing in this state, as evidence in themselves of the facts shown thereby. Bolling v. Fannin, 97 Ala. 619, 12 South. 59; McDonald v. Carnes, 90 Ala. 147, 7 South. 919. Such evidence is to be received with that reserve the circumstances suggest. In this case there was other evidence pointing to the same conclusion—the testimony of" De Lemos, Folda, and Asher. The testimony of 'these witnesses has been made the subject of much unfavorable criticism, but it was clearly admissible, and to the extent at least it was in accord with apparently trustworthy circumstances it must have consideration.

The testimony of neither party to the transaction being available, proof of the immediate facts must be found chiefly in such collateral facts as were accessible. This leaves the issue not so clearly solved as should be expected in other circumstances. Still upon the whole evidence we feel reasonably well satisfied that appellee’s version of the 'facts should be sustained. Other considerations contribute to the result, but of peculiar force are the facts that at the death of appellant’s intestate the second and third notes of the series, reciting the fact that they were secured by mortgage, were in the possession of appellee with no notation of payment upon them, and that upon February 23, 1907, appellee drew his checks payable to intestate in the sum of $3,000. Both of these facts are significant. The latter, if *511 accepted as a fact, can only be explained con-sistently with the usual motives of human conduct on the hypothesis that appellee did on that date advance to intestate $3,000 on the security of the mortgage which he already held.

But appellant insists that it was not competent for the parties to the original mortgage by parol agreement to extend that security to any new advances or any debt other than that originally secured thereby.

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Bluebook (online)
83 So. 330, 203 Ala. 509, 1919 Ala. LEXIS 28, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcwhorter-v-tyson-ala-1919.