Mount v. State

317 S.W.2d 212, 167 Tex. Crim. 7, 1958 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 3478
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 28, 1958
Docket29794
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 317 S.W.2d 212 (Mount v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mount v. State, 317 S.W.2d 212, 167 Tex. Crim. 7, 1958 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 3478 (Tex. 1958).

Opinions

MORRISON, Presiding Judge.

The offense is theft by false pretext under an indictment charging ordinary theft; the punishment, five years.

The appellant, a practicing attorney and secretary of the Home Guaranty Abstract Company, was manager of the Ridge-lea branch office of that company in the city of Fort Worth and, as such, had the authority to write insurance policies for the Commercial Standard Insurance Company. As a preliminary to the writing of such policies, it was business practice that notification called a “title binder” be sent to the person or firm who was to lend the money, indicating that the insurance company stood ready to indemnify the mortgagee for any loss they might sustain as the result of a defect in the title to property upon which money was to be loaned. In order that the parties might know what insurance protection was being afforded, it became necessary for the “title binder” as well as the policy to state what liens, if any, were outstanding against the property. For [9]*9this purpose, on the face of the “title binder” the printed words appeared stating that title was approved in the mortgagor:

“Section B.
“Subject to the following:
❖ ❖ ❖ *
“2. (Easements, rights of way, liens, etc.)”

On February 16, 1956, the appellant, acting for the insurance company and the abstract company, sent a title binder addressed to J. E. Foster & Son, Inc., in which it stated that a title in a certain lot in the city of Fort Worth was approved in one Adrian D. Davis, and under “Easements, rights of way, liens, etc.,, as shown above, no mention was made of an outstanding lien of $8,000.00, a title policy to cover which the appellant himself had signed and issued to another mortgagee some three months before.

The title binder described a note and lien securing the same as a Deed of Trust executed by Davis to secure the payment of a $10,500.00 note payable to J. E. Foster & Son., Inc. and recited that said Warranty Deed, Deed of Trust and all supporting papers would be filed for record upon approval of the mortgage loan papers, and further provided:

“Upon the completion of the improvements, if any, on said property, the owners’ acceptance thereof and a showing satisfactory to the undersigned that all bills for labor and material in connection therewith have been paid in full, upon payment of all taxes and assessments then due upon said property, and upon compliance with restrictive covenants now affecting the property, we will issue a first-subordinate lien mortgagee’s title policy on the standard form prescribed by the Board of Insurance Commissioners of Texas, then in use, on said property covering said lien set forth under Paragraph 5 above or a valid renewal and extension thereof, subject only to the matters set out in Section B, paragraph 2 above, the printed exceptions contained in said standard form and to taxes and assessments for the current year.”

Mortgagee’s policy countersigned by appellant as agent of Home Guaranty Abstract Company, Ridglea Branch, and dated March 1, 1956, recited that the Deed of Trust had been filed and [10]*10recorded that day insuring against all loss or damage J. E. Foster & Son., Inc., may sustain or suffer by reason of defects in encumbrances upon or lien or charges against the title of mortgagors to said lot.

As in the mortgagee’s title policy binder, the mortgagee’s policy did not list an outstanding lien against the lot to secure an $8,000.00 note payable to Mutual Savings & Loan Association among the matters against which the company did not insure or agree to indemnify, though appellant as agent of the same abstract company countersigned a like mortgagee’s policy issued by the same insurance company to secure against simliar loss upon a lien on the same lot on November 6, 1955.

An application for a real estate loan was made by Adrian D. Davis to J. E. Foster & Son., Inc., to be secured by a first lien on said lot, in which it was represented that said property had been purchased on January 28, 1956, at a price of $16,400.00 from Critz Realty, of which $5,000 had been paid, and that proceeds of the loan of $10,500.00 was to be used as part of the purchase price.

One Lynn Hill, acting for J. E. Foster & Son., Inc., in reliance upon these instruments, issued a check in the sum of $10,-500.00 which was sent to the abstract company and deposited to the account of Home Guaranty Abstract Company, Ridgelea Branch. The $8,000.00 lien was not paid off by the appellant, and the proceeds of the $10,500.00 check passed through the account of the abstract company. Shortly after the receipt of the Hill check, the appellant wrote four checks on the abstract company payable to himself in the total sum of $3,862.00. Within a short while after the Hill check was received, the abstract company bank account was shown to be overdrawn in the sum of $10,000.00.

Davis made the application for the loan from J. E. Foster & Son, Inc., in the appellant’s office and received $105.00 or 10% of the loan, from the appellant for so doing. It was also shown that on two other occasions the appellant, acting for the abstract company, had failed to inform mortgagees of outstanding liens and, by his conduct, had led them to believe that they were securing first liens when in fact they were not.

These, we have concluded, are the salient features of the case, but the evidence will be discussed more fully in connec[11]*11tion with contentions presented by appellant’s eminent attorney in brief and argument.

The sufficiency of the evidence to show that the appellant made any misrepresentations to the injured party is challenged. Hill testified that all- his business with the appellant had been over the telephone and that he did not remember having ever discussed the Davis transaction. It is the appellant’s contention that the mere failure to list the outstanding lien in the proper place on the title binder without anything further being said does not constitute such a false pretext as might supply a basis for this prosecution. The mere act of submitting through the channels of trade this written instrument, which should have contained a recitation of the outstanding indebtedness but which did not, considered in the light of the entire tranaction, constituted a false pretext and representation by which appellant received and appropriated the proceeds of the check issued by Hill for which the appellant may be prosecuted under the charge at bar. The fact that the binder contained other representations and commitments which were not untrue will not alter the case.

Appellant next contends that the evidence fails to support a finding that Hill ever saw or read the title binder. We quote from the record:

“Q. Mr. Hill, I will ask you whether or not you received that in the regular course of business prior to the time you made any loan on the lot described therein? A. Yes, sir, I did.
“Q. I will ask you whether or not you relied in making a loan upon the representations that appear in this binder? A. Yes, I did. (S. of F. p. 127).”

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

Related

Cheney v. State
694 S.W.2d 638 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1985)
Imperial Insurance Company v. Ellington
498 S.W.2d 368 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1973)
Gentry v. State
494 S.W.2d 169 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1973)
Terry v. State
471 S.W.2d 848 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1971)
Donald v. State
453 S.W.2d 825 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1969)
Luster v. State
356 S.W.2d 934 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1962)
Anders v. State
350 S.W.2d 549 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1961)
Malone v. State
168 Tex. Crim. 409 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1959)
Mount v. State
317 S.W.2d 212 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1958)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
317 S.W.2d 212, 167 Tex. Crim. 7, 1958 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 3478, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mount-v-state-texcrimapp-1958.