Merchants Bank v. Dunn

70 P.2d 760, 41 N.M. 432
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 14, 1937
DocketNo. 4223.
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 70 P.2d 760 (Merchants Bank v. Dunn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Merchants Bank v. Dunn, 70 P.2d 760, 41 N.M. 432 (N.M. 1937).

Opinion

SADLER,' Justice.

This is a suit by the Merchants Bank, a banking corporation, of Gallup, N. M., as plaintiff, to set aside a conveyance of certain real estate located in the town of Gallup, as a voluntary conveyance made in fraud of creditors. The grantors in the deed of conveyance, John J. Dunn and Mabelle A. Dunn, his wife, of Gallup, and the grantee therein, A. E. Thiffault, of Chicago, 111., were made defendants to the suit. While the suit was pending and before trial, John J. Dunn in the meantime having been adjudicated a bankrupt, his trustee in bankruptcy, Frank J. Burke, inr tervened in the suit, adopted the allegations of the complaint, and prayed that said deed be set aside and the property adjudged in ownership of the bankrupt for the benefit of all his creditors.

The case was tried at Gallup on December 5, 1935. Within a week prior thereto, on November 27th, the defendant Thiffault, by consent of all parties, had been orally examined out of order as a witness in his own behalf at Santa Fé and a transcript of his testimony preserved. Upon the trial, when plaintiff had rested its case, the defendants moved for a dismissal, themselves tendering no testimony or evidence. This motion the court properly treated as a demurrer to the evidence. However, in their argument upon the motion, so treated, counsel for plaintiff dealt with the testimony of defendant Thiffault, hot theretofore introduced, and consented that the court might take same into consideration in ruling on the demurrer. Accordingly, if the testimony of Thiffault is to he considered, the most that can be said of it, and counsel for defendants do not seriously contend otherwise, is that the transcript thereof came in as a part of plaintiff’s case in chief, to which defendants’ demurrer was directed along with all other evidence adduced by plaintiff. We shall so treat it.

The trial court sustained defendants’ demurrer to the evidence and dismissed the oomplaint. From the judgment so rendered the plaintiff and the intervener join in this appeal, praying a revision and correction thereof. A statement of the facts is necessary to test correctness of the trial court’s ruling on the demurrer.

On December 28, 1933, the defendants Dunn and wife signed two notes in plaintiff’s favor in the total principal amount of $9,800, renewing an indebtedness of the Dunns which originated some five years previously in the sum of $11,500. As security for the debt and on the same date the notes for $9,800 were signed, the Dunns executed a mortgage in plaintiff’s favor on some improved real estate in Gallup.

On January 19, 1934, less than three weeks later, the Dunns joined in a conveyance to defendant Thiffault of certain other real estate in Gallup, consisting of improved town lots, by a deed reciting as the consideration “the sum of ten ($10.00) * * * and other good and valuable considerations.” There were attached to the deed canceled documentary revenue stamps in the amount of three and one-half dollars. This deed was promptly recorded. At the time of this conveyance, the property mortgaged to plaintiff only three weeks prior thereto had a value not to exceed $7,750. There was no evidence that the Dunns owned any other property, real or personal, than that mortgaged to plaintiff and that conveyed to defendant Thiffault. The propperty conveyed to Thiffault had a net value of $3,500 at the time of its conveyance.

Mrs. Thiffault and Mrs. Dunn were first cousins. Mrs. Dunn had been reared in the home of Mrs. Thiffault’s mother from the time she was a child five or six years of age and was looked upon as a member of the family.

Actual consideration for the conveyance from the Dunns t& Thiffault as testified by Mr. Dunn and Mr. Thiffault, each being placed on the stand at plaintiff’s compulsory call, was a loan from Thiffault to the Dunns made in the yeár 1931. Each related the same story touching this loan.

So related, it happened in this wise: In June, 1931, Mr. Dunn visited Chicago, asked and received of Thiffault a loan of $1,500. Proceeds of the loan were paid over in currency. Later, in August, 1931, Mrs. Dunn went to Chicago and asked and received an additional loan of $2,000, also paid in currency. The currency was removed by Thiffault from his safety deposit box in a named bank and delivered to Mr. and Mrs. Dunn, respectively, at the times mentioned, in Thiffault’s home with no witness present in either instance. No receipt, note, or other evidence of the loan was asked or given at that time.

Subsequently, a note on a form printed by Valient Printing Company of Albuquerque, N. M., was signed by the Dunns and mailed to Thiffault in Chicago. The note was dated August 4, 1931. Its maturity was one year from date. It provided for 10 per cent, interest from date, 10 per cent, attorney’s fees, if placed with an attorney for collection, and was in the principal sum of $3,500, aggregate of the two loans testified to. According to Mr. Thiffault, this note was received by him in the mails “shortly after August 4th,” 1931, its date; according to Mr. Dunn he sent it to Thiffault at Chicago with reference to the note’s date, “sometime afterward * * * maybe a month or two * * * maybe three months.” Whereas, according to the witness John C. Blaine of Valient Printing Company of Albuquerque, the note was one of an invoice of five thousand promissory note forms on Hammermill Bond paper not printed by his company until February 15, 1932.

Interest remained unpaid on the note from its date until settlement by transfer of the property to Thiffault, or from August 4, 1931, to January 18, 1934. During this period of approximately two -and one-half years, although the note reached maturity at the end of one year, Thiffault made no demand upon the Dunns for payment either of principal or interest. No communication of any kind ever passed between them with reference to the note. Then, shortly before the conveyance in January, 1934, Thiffault, feeling some concern regarding the indebtedness, notwithstanding two and one-half years’ silence on the subject, suddenly and of his own notion left Chicago for Gallup for the purpose of securing a settlement. The note he left behind in his safety deposit box, where it had remained unexamined and untouched since its receipt from the Dunns.

Arriving in Gallup he finally got around to the matter of the note. In Thiffault’s own words the settlement came about thusly: “I asked if he was in a position to take care of this obligation. He said he didn’t have any ready cash and spoke about the mortgage he had on those three buildings with the bank, and the only thing he had to offer in settlement was this property on Coal Avenue. After considering the matter we took it up with Mr. Denny and closed the deal.” (Italics ours.)

Thus, according to the stories of Dunn and Thiffault, and under the circumstances related by them, was the loan made and settled.

Default having resulted on the $9,800 indebtedness due plaintiff, in due course it instituted foreclosure proceedings. On March 5, 1935, a deficiency judgment was entered against the Dunns for $3,323.50 as the amount remaining due plaintiff after applying proceeds of the sale of the mortgaged real estate. On April 27, 1935, the defendant John J. Dunn was adjudicated a bankrupt by the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. Frank J.

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Bluebook (online)
70 P.2d 760, 41 N.M. 432, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/merchants-bank-v-dunn-nm-1937.