Mitchell v. Burnham

57 Me. 314
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine
DecidedJuly 1, 1869
StatusPublished

This text of 57 Me. 314 (Mitchell v. Burnham) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Judicial Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mitchell v. Burnham, 57 Me. 314 (Me. 1869).

Opinion

Barrows, J.

This case comes before us for a hearing upon certain exceptions taken to the report of a master in chancery, appointed in pursuance of an opinion rendered in the case, and reported 44 Maine, 286, holding the complainant entitled to redeem the mortgaged premises, upon payment of such sums as should be found to be legally and equitably due upon the mortgage.

The mortgage was originally given to the father of the defendant by her brother, who received a conveyance of the father’s farm, and gave the mortgage to secure the performance of certain covenants and stipulations by him then entered into for the support of his father and mother, upon the farm, during life, and the furnishing of certain privileges to his sisters while they remained unmarried, and other matters which it is not necessary here to specify in detail.

The mortgager, in a few years, parted with his interest in the premises, and the complainant acquired it while a writ of entry was pending in the name of the father, the original mortgagee, to recover possession of the farm for an alleged breach of condition.

In that action a conditional judgment for $250 and costs was made up at the October term, 1851; and the same not being paid, the mortgagee went into possession under a writ of possession, Feb. [319]*31924, 1852, aud conveyed the farm to the respondent, by deed of warranty, May 2, 1853.

The complainant, holding the title of the mortgager, in January, 1855, within three years after the mortgagee went into possession, tendered to the respondent the amount of the conditional judgment and interest, demanded an account of rents and profits which the respondent refused to give, and offered to pay any additional sum that might be found due upon an adjustment of the rents and profits, and brought his bill to redeem, which ho was held by the court entitled to do in these terms: “ The conditional judgment having been entered in the action, Harnden v. Harnden, upon the mortgage, the plaintiff to be entitled to redeem, must pay such further sums, if any, as have since accrued.”

The master finds a certain sum accruing since the entry of the conditional judgment which he says the complainant ought to pay in order to redeem.

The most formidable objection to the master’s report, and the one now principally relied on in argument by complainant’s counsel, is that the respondent is estopped by the conditional judgment rendered upon the mortgage, from claiming anything that might subsequently accrue, — that that judgment must be conclusively presumed to embrace all the damages, both past and prospective, occasioned by the violation of the condition and the failure of the mortgager to furnish support.

But we think it unnecessary to consider whether there is anything in the condition of this mortgage, or in the manner in which the conditional judgment upon it was made up, to distinguish the case in principle from Philbrook v. Burgess, 52 Maine, 271; and Sibley v. Rider, 54 Maine, 463.

It is a sufficient answer to the objection, that it is now, for the first time, suggested in an argument to the full court upon exceptions to a master’s report in which it does not appear that any such position was taken before the master, or any exception alleged to his ruling upon that point.

We hold that, in a hearing of this description, a party must be [320]*320confined to such exceptions as he filed to the master’s report, and cannot be permitted to go out of those exceptions to raise other objections never before taken, and which he must be held to have waived. Pingree v. Coffin, 12 Gray, 315. Smalley v. Corliss, 37 Vermont, 435.

We have no reluctance in applying the rule to the present case, because in doing so we are only conforming to the view' which, until very recently, the. complainant and his able counsel seem to have taken of his equitable rights and duties, and to the view which the court entertained in this very case, when the master was appointed, — such an appointment being _ totally unnecessary if this objection ought to have prevailed.

It is manifest that in the making up of the conditional judgment on the mortgage, no prospective damages for the breach of the condition were included. The report states that testimony was offered tending to prove that the complainant proposed to the mortgagee to provide for the support of the beneficiaries named in the mortgage, and it would seem that the mortgagee assented to this; but the master finds, further, that the complainant did not make adequate provision for their support, and that they received no part of their support from him. Under these circumstances, equity does not permit him to resort to a legal estoppel which has once been so completely waived in order to preclude the mortgagee or his assignee from the benefit of such provision as the mortgage was designed to secure; for equity looks to the intention of the parties rather than to the form of their proceedings, and strives to give effect to such intention when fairly disclosed.

We proceed now to consider the exceptions that were actually taken to the master’s doings. ■

■ The first exception is to the allowance made by the master for the support of the mortgagee and his wife, after September, 1853, when they removed from the farm, against the position taken by the complainant that by the conditions of the mortgage they were to be supported there and not elsewhere. The exception would be well taken if it did not also appeal’ by the master’s report that the complainant, though he assumed the duties and obligations of the mortgager ap[321]*321patently with, the assent of the mortgagee, neglected to furnish the necessary means of support. This being the case, the mortgagee and his wife were under no obligation to maintain themselves upon the farm, but might seek the support required by their age and infirmities where it could best be afforded, which was with their daughter, the respondent; the plaintiff cannot complain if loss and expense have resulted from his neglect to fulfill the obligations which he had undertaken, since it does not appear that the expense incurred for their support, by their daughter, was extravagant or unreasonable.

The second exception relates to the expíense for support accruing after the conveyance by the mortgagee to the respondent. This objection we think equally ill-founded. The complainant insists that the conveyance to the respondent was a release and discharge of all the mortgagee’s claim for support under the conditions of the mortgage, inasmuch as it passed all his title to the land, which was the only means he had of enforcing the performance of the condition; and that the assignee of such a mortgage could take nothing by such assignment except what was due at the time of the assignment, and could claim nothing for the future support of the mortgagee and other beneficiaries named in the mortgage, in case of the failure of the mortgager or his assignee to furnish it. Not so in either particular.

No good reason can be shown why such a conveyance should be construed as a release to the mortgager, or his assignee, who has (with the consent of the mortgagee) undertaken, but has not performed the duties of the mortgager, from the obligation to afford support according to the conditions of the mortgage. Manifestly, nothing of that sort was intended.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
57 Me. 314, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mitchell-v-burnham-me-1869.