Miller v. Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners

78 Miss. 201
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 15, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 78 Miss. 201 (Miller v. Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miller v. Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners, 78 Miss. 201 (Mich. 1900).

Opinion

Calhoon, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

In 1891 Mrs. Josephine Mason was the owner in possession ■of a large tract of land, including the 13TVo- acres about which this controversy has arisen. But she. so owned and held the whole subject to a mortgage given to secure the Equitable Mortgage Company a loan of $20,000. In this condition of things the board of levee commissioners wanted the 13x/(T acres for levee purposes, and such proceedings were had that the damages were ascertained to be $535, which sum was paid to Mrs. Mason, and she executed a conveyance of the 13TVo acres to the board. It followed, of course, that the mortgage company, under Board v. Wiborn, 74 Miss., 396, s.c. 20 South., 861, if necessary to its security, might have sued for and recovered this sum of money from the board, notwithstanding the previous payment to Mrs. Mason. All the proceedings and payment and the conveyance were in 1891. . Afterwards, in February, 1895, conveyance was made, under foreclosure of the mortgage, to the Equitable Sureties Company, which may be conceded to be or not to be the same thing with the Equitable Mortgage Company, so far as this case is concerned, for a recited consideration of $10,000, being but one-half of the amount of the mortgage debt. In January, 1896, the Equitable Sureties Company conveyed the whole tract to 11. M. Harding for $20,000. Afterwards, in the same year (1896), R. M. [204]*204Harding conveyed the tract to F. S. Miller and C. B. Miller for $25,000, and after that C. B. Miller conveyed his interest to appellant, F. S. Miller, who, on January 8, 1900, filed his petition for damages with the circuit clerk, under the act for such cases, and had commissioners appointed, who assessed the 13tVít acres used for levees at the value of $535, and the board of levee commissioners appealed to the circuit court, which gave judgment for the board, and F. S. Miller appeals.

The court below was manifestly right. When the damage was done, Mr. Miller had no sort of connection with the land as either owner or mortgagee. No one was damaged except Mrs. Mason or her mortgagee. She was paid, and her mortgagee never made complaint, and Mr. Miller bought the land in its then damaged condition. A right to sue for damages previously sustained does not go with the transfer of the land by mere conveyance of the land.

Affirmed.

SUGGESTION OP ERROR.

Fontaine Jones and Mg Willie de Thompson, for appellant, after the delivery of the foregoing opinion, presented the following suggestion of error:

Believing it possible, from some expressions in the opinion, that the court overlooked one of the facts of this case, the appellant would respectfully suggest error in the decision of affirmance.

There were no condemnation proceedings and award of damages, a's the court evidently supposed. The record shows that, an agreement having been reached between Mrs. Mason, the mortgagor, and the levee board as to the price of the land, she thereupon conveyed the same to the board. The transaction was one simply of a sale and conveyance by the mortgagor of a part of the mortgaged premises.

[205]*205We do not dissent from the reasoning of any of the cases cited in behalf of the appellee, but they in nowise apply to the question in hand. It is true that, except as- against the mortgagee and his assigns, etc., a mortgagor is the owner until foreclosure, and that the right of the mortgagee to possession even does not arise until there has been a breach of condition, and then only for the purpose of making his security available.

The present controversy involves another question quite apart from, those touching the mortgagor’s relations to the property prior to, and, when there might never be any, foreclosure. The question here has reference only to those cases where there has been a foreclosure, and involves the ascertainment of the interest in the estate acquired by one who has purchased at foreclosure sale. Is this interest commensurate with the estate mortgaged, or not? If it is not, to what extent can a mortgagor reduce the subject of the mortgage during the continuance of the lien ? Suppose, in the case before us, Mrs. Mason, instead of conveying away the 13-^V acres, had retained that parcel and conveyed away the balance of 2,866TVo-, or had conveyed the whole, would the purchaser at foreclosure sale have taken the estate as so reduced, or no estate at all ?

It is undoubtedly true that a mortgagor can only convey his equity of redemption, and that by foreclosure of the lien this equity is cut off in each and every part of the mortgaged premises. And the purchaser at foreclosure sale does not take the estate as diminished by transfers made by the mortgagor in the interval between the date of the mortgage and the foreclosure. He takes the whole of the estate covered by and vendible under the lien. In Jones on Mortgages,'the rule is thus stated: “As the title of the purchaser relates back to the execution of the mortgage, it does not matter to him what disposition the mortgagor may have made of the property.....In this respect the purchaser’s rights are the same, whether the sale be under a decree of a court of equity, under a judgment in scire facias or under a power in the mortgage or trust deed. [206]*206The title takes effect by virtue of the original deed; the sale carries that title, and cuts off all liens and interests created subsequent to the. mortgage.....Title acquired by foreclosure relates back to the date of the mortgage, so as to cut off intervening equities and rights. If all subsequent purchasers and incumbrancers are made parties to the bill, the title under the mortgage foreclosed is forfeited to an absolute one. In such case the purchaser acquires the title of the mortgagee and also the title of the mortgagor as it stood at the time of the making of the mortgage. ’ ’

We also invite attention to the numerous authorities which this learned writer cites in support of his text, and also to that portion of his work in which he carefully states the right of a mortgagor to recognition as owner prior to foreclosure, and when it could not be known whether there would ever be any foreclosure or not. He certainly did not think that the recognition of this right in the mortgagor in anywise affected the right of a purchaser at foreclosure sale, which, though a new right, related back to the date of the mortgage for the ascertainment of its extent. Vide 5 Ballard’s Law Real Property, sec. 599.

There is an intimation in the opinion of the court that the purchaser at foreclosure sale took the property in its damaged condition. We think that, on reference to the record, it will be conceded that the land in controversy has never been taken at all by the purchaser. The levee board is in possession, occupying it with the levees constructed on it, and claiming it adversely under the deed of the mortgagor, Mrs. Mason.

We cannot regard the case of Levee Board v. Wiborn, 74 Miss., 396, as at all adverse to the appellant’s,contention. In that case it was held that, where there had been a condemnation and appraisement, and the amount of the award paid over to the mortgagor, the mortgagee might still maintain his action for the damages assessed. As far as the decision went, it rather sustains the position taken by the appellant, but it is [207]*207dissimilar to the case at bar in many of its features. There the commissioners appointed to assess levee damages adjudicated the damages.

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Bluebook (online)
78 Miss. 201, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-board-of-mississippi-levee-commissioners-miss-1900.