Pontiac Improvement Co. v. Leisy

14 N.W.2d 384, 144 Neb. 705, 1944 Neb. LEXIS 83
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedMay 5, 1944
DocketNo. 31763
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 14 N.W.2d 384 (Pontiac Improvement Co. v. Leisy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pontiac Improvement Co. v. Leisy, 14 N.W.2d 384, 144 Neb. 705, 1944 Neb. LEXIS 83 (Neb. 1944).

Opinion

Paine, J.

This is an equity action for the foreclosure of a real estate mortgage. Decree was duly entered, from which two of the defendants appeal.

On June 17, 1925, Harry E. Leisy and wife gave a mortgage to Hugo A. Leisy upon a residence property, being lots 19 and 20, block 28, original town of Wisner, Cuming county, Nebraska, to secure payment of three notes amounting to $10,000 and interest, which mortgage was recorded in Book 44 at page 596. On April 20, 1932, this mortgage was assigned to the plaintiff corporation. On April 1, 1936, an extension agreement was entered into between the assignee corporation and the original mortgagors, extending said mortgage for five years from April 1, 1936, and agreeing that the mortgage has been re-recorded in Book 55 at page 638 of the mortgage records of Cuming county.

In the amended answer of defendant Julius Ludwig he denies that the plaintiff is a corporation, charging that its charter expired in 1939 “and no further provisions have been made to authorize the maintaining of this action,” and also charging that he obtained a judgment of $39,882.50 against Irvin O. Leisy and Harry E. Leisy on November 5, 1935, and that execution was returned unsatisfied.

Said defendant further alleges that there was no consid[707]*707eration. for the mortgage of $10,000, which was given to a brother of the mortgagor for the sole purpose of hindering, delaying and defrauding his creditors. He further alleges that the extension agreement of said mortgage was executed without consideration, and that in June, 1935, the $10,-000 mortgage and note which it was given to secure were barred by the statute of limitations and ceased to be a lien upon the lots involved, and that his judgment became a first lien upon the lots in question, subject only to a tax lien, and prays that he be decreed to have a prior lien to the mortgage of plaintiff.

On April 15, 1942, Oscar R. Thompson and Thomas Thompson filed their amended answer, in which they admit the corporate existence of the plaintiff corporation; admit the filing of all instruments set out in the petition, but allege that none of them have any valid force or effect; admit that defendant Ludwig recovered a judgment as alleged in his answer, but claim, that the lien of Ludwig’s judgment is inferior to and subject to the lien of a judgment of $13,-514.03 which they recovered against Harry E. Leisy, mortgagor, and another on November 5, 1935. They further charge in their answer that the purported mortgage, notes and assignment and extension agreement are all part of an evil plan, device, or scheme, without consideration, to perpetrate a fraud upon existing creditors, especially these answering defendants ; that if the notes and mortgage and assignment set up in plaintiff’s, petition are valid, they are now barred by the statute of limitations., and pray that they be decreed to have a prior lien on the real estate involved superior to the claim of the plaintiff and of other defendants..

On September 10, 1943, the cause came on for trial upon the petition of the plaintiff and the amended answers of defendants. Thereupon defendant Ludwig was granted leave to amend his answer instanter by interlineation to set out that plaintiff corporation had been chartered for 25 years only, and that its charter had expired in 1939.

The plaintiff introduced as exhibits copies of the several [708]*708statutes of Ohio relating to corporations, being duly authenticated exemplifications, of the same under certificate of the secretary of state, together with a certified copy of the original articles of incorporation of the plaintiif company, showing that it was organized May 28, 1914, and was to exist for the term of 25 years.

Plaintiif also oifered in evidence five certificates of amendments to the articles, duly certified by the secretary of state. The last amendment to said articles of incorporation was under date of October 15, 1940, raising the stated capital of the corporation from $500,000' to the sum of $1,000,000.

Section 8623-14 of the General Corporation Act of Ohio, in evidence before us, provides that any corporation may alter or amend its articles, and further, in section 8623-15, provides that such “amended articles shall supersede and take the place of the then existing articles of the corporation and all amendments thereto.”

An examination of these exhibits shows that in paragraph three of the original articles of incorporation its life was fixed at 25 years, which would end May 28, 1939, but on May 20, 1939, the third paragraph of the said articles was amended in to to by written consent of all the stockholders, and entirely omitting the time of termination of the life of the corporation; that is to say, the new and amended third paragraph of the articles of incorporation established no. length of life for the corporation, nor was this referred to in any other paragraph.

Section 8623-7, as set out in exhibit No. 1, provides that “Upon the filing of the articles the incorporators and their associates, successors and assigns by the name stated herein, shall, from the dáte of such filing, be and constitute a body corporate, with perpetual succession.”

This general corporation act of Ohio, which became effective June 8, 1927, long before the amendment of the articles on May 20, 1939, repealing the limit of 25 years, for its corporate existence, thus placed the corporation under the above section 8623-7, which thereby gave this corporation perpetual succession.

[709]*709“If the period of its existence is not limited by its charter a corporation will exist indefinitely and until it is legally dissolved.” 18 C. J. S. 469, sec. 78.

In our opinion, the plaintiff Ohio corporation was a valid, existing corporation, and there appears no ground whatever for the claim that there was anything irregular or wrong in so amending the articles of incorporation of this company, and it had the legal right to foreclose its mortgage in the state of Nebraska.

The trial court found that there Was due the plaintiff the sum of $10,000 and interest, and that the mortgage had become absolute, and that plaintiff was entitled to have the premises sold to satisfy said mortgage unless the same was paid within 20 days after the date of the decree. It was ordered that the sheriff sell the premises as upon execution and bring the proceeds into court in satisfaction, first, of the plaintiff’s lien, and the issues between the defendants were reserved for future determination. The defendant Ludwig filed motion asking that the decree be modified by determining the respective priority of the two answering defendants.

Thereafter, on October 19, 1943, the district court entered a supplemental decree, finding that each of the aforesaid judgments of the two. defendants was rendered on the 5th day of November, 1935, but that the judgment of. the defendants Thompson was first entered on the journal of the records of the court, and that thereafter the judgment of Ludwig was entered upon the journal, and therefore finds that the Thompson judgment is a lien prior to the judgment of Ludwig, which is a third lien against the property in suit; whereupon notice of appeal was given by the defendants.

The question is also presented in the brief of defendants’ counsel that Thompsons’ judgment is not prior to the Ludwig judgment, and that the court erred in holding that the journalizing fixed the time when the lien accrued.

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

Related

State v. McColery
301 Neb. 516 (Nebraska Supreme Court, 2018)
Opinion No. (2003)
Nebraska Attorney General Reports, 2003
Forest Home Cemetery Ass'n v. Dardanella Financial Corp.
329 N.W.2d 885 (South Dakota Supreme Court, 1983)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
14 N.W.2d 384, 144 Neb. 705, 1944 Neb. LEXIS 83, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pontiac-improvement-co-v-leisy-neb-1944.