Reed v. Jennings

63 N.E. 1005, 196 Ill. 472
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedApril 16, 1902
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 63 N.E. 1005 (Reed v. Jennings) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reed v. Jennings, 63 N.E. 1005, 196 Ill. 472 (Ill. 1902).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Boggs

delivered the opinion of the court:

On the 15th day of July, 1892, one Hans A. Calland executed a trust deed in the nature of a mortgage to the Chicago Title and Trust Company as trustee, whereby he conveyed in trust, by way of mortgage, one hundred and forty-one lots to secure his notes in the sum of §32,500. The notes so secured were thirty-two in number, each being for the sum of §1000, except the last, which was for the sum of §1500. The notes were numbered consecutively, from 1 to 32. Numbers 1 to 8, inclusive, fell due in one year after date; 9 to 16, inclusive, fell due in two years; 17 to 24, inclusive, in three years, and 25 to 32, inclusive, in four years. The trust deed contained provisions authorizing the redemption and release of the lots separately, upon payment of specified sums. Under this clause Calland, the mortgagor, paid the sum of about §19,000 of the indebtedness, and notes representing that amount were canceled and sixty-four lots were released from the lien of the trust deed. Said Calland, the mortgagor, sold and conveyed a number of the remaining lots to M. H. Rundell, who assumed and agreed to pay notes Nos. 22 to 31, inclusive, each for §1000, being the total sum of §10,000, with interest thereon from July 15,1895. Four other of the lots were sold to other of the defend: ants, each of whom assumed the payment of specified sums of indebtedness secured by the trust deed. On October 23, 1897, said Calland held title to thirty of the lots, upon which, should Rundell and the other prior purchasers of the other lots pay the amounts assumed by them, respectively, to be paid upon the mortgage debt, it would be only necessary to pay $2700 and accrued interest to discharge them from the lien of the mortgage. Aside from the contracts of the subsequent purchasers a much larger sum would have been required to be paid to release the thirty lots from the mortgage or trust deed. Calland contracted to sell twenty-nine of said thirty lots to Hugh T. Reed, husband of the appellant, for the sum of $10,000. Reed assumed to pay $2450 of the said $2700, and conveyed to Calland other property in payment of the remainder of the purchase price of the twenty-nine lots. Calland afterwards paid the sum of $250 and the interest thereon, and secured the release of the only remaining lot to which he held title. This payment and release were in pursuance of the provisions of the trust deed authorizing the release of separate lots. Reed, on the 13th day of July, 1898, paid to said Chicago Title and Trust Company, the trustee in the said trust deed or mortgage, the said sum of $2450, and accrued interest thereon, and received a release deed purporting to discharge the twenty-nine lots which he purchased from Calland from the further lien of the trust deed. The sum thus paid by Reed was insufficient, following the provisions of the trust deed, to authorize the trustee to release his twenty-nine lots. Within perhaps an hour after the execution of this release deed to Reed the Chicago Title and Trust Company discovered the error, and claimed that the release was issued to Reed without compliance upon his part with the requirements of the deed of trust; that it was unauthorized ■ by the holders of the notes secured by the deed of trust and was therefore without legal force, tendered to return the money he had paid and demanded that he should surrender up to it the release deed. Reed refused to comply with the demand., and on the following day, the 14th day of July, 1898, conveyed the lots to the appellant, his wife. The Chicago Title and Trust Company on the same day filed a petition in chancery praying that the release deed be canceled and expunged from the records. Soon after, the appellees, the holders and owners of the notes secured by the trust deed to the Chicago Title and Trust Company, as trustee, filed a bill in chancery for the foreclosure of the trust deed and also for the cancellation of the deed of release. The two causes were consolidated, and upon a hearing a decree was rendered canceling the release on the return of the sum paid to the Chicago Title and Trust Company by said Hugh T. Reed, and also decreeing that all the lots, save the sixty-four theretofore released, as aforesaid, should be sold by the master in chancery for the purpose of discharging the amount declared by the decree to be due and unpaid upon the notes held by the appellees. The appellant prosecuted an appeal, but the decree was affirmed by the Appellate Court for the First District, and the record is before us upon a further appeal prosecuted on her behalf.

It is first contended the appellant, Mrs. Sallie E. Reed, should have been regarded by the chancellor as an innocent purchaser for value of the twenty-nine lots, and that she should have been protected as a bona fide purchaser against all efforts to cancel the deed of release and thereby subject her property to the lien of the mortgage.

The appellant, Mrs. Reed, had inherited some property from the estate of her father, who died in Indianapolis, Indiana. While she was at her brother’s house in Indianapolis, soon after her father’s death, in the month of July, 1898, and prior to the execution of the deed of release, her husband, in response to a letter written by her asking him to come to Indianapolis, answered that he could not come; that he had to secure some money to meet and discharge a mortgage, and in reply to which she wrote to him that if he would come to Indianapolis she thought she could provide him with the money. He went to Indianapolis, and it was agreed between them that she should pay him the sum of $3850 (which she secured by the sale of a portion of her interest in her father’s estate) for the twenty-nine lots in question. She was informed by him that the lots were subject to a mortgage, but he told her that there was only the sum of $2450, and some interest thereon, remaining to be paid to release the lots from the mortgage upon them, and that the lots would then be clear, except some amounts due for taxes and special assessments, and that out of the.money received from her he would pay all liens of all kinds and convey the lots to her free and clear of any manner of encumbrances. She paid him the sum of $3850, and with the funds thus provided he returned to Chicago, procured the release to be executed by the Chicago Title and Trust Company and delivered to him, placed the same on record, executed a deed conveying the lots, through the medium of a trustee, to her, and had the deed placed of record for her, as he had agreed with her to do. The trust deed on the lots stood of record in the county of Cook, and the law charged the appellant, Mrs. Reed, with notice of the lien thereby created upon the lots, and with knowledge of all the terms and conditions of the trust deed. In addition to that, her husband carried to her actual knowledge that the lots were subject to a mortgage. She was not induced to part with her money by any act done or represéntation made by the trustee in the trust deed or by the holders of the notes secured thereby. She acted solely upon the faith o'f the representations made to her by her husband, and neither the appellees nor the trustee in the trust deed were responsible for his statements to her. True, her husband did succeed in inducing the trustee in the trust deed to execute a release upon payment of the amount he told her remained to be paid to discharge the lien of the trust deed; but this release was not issued until after she had parted with her money, and it could not in any way have induced her to act to her injury or prejudice.

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Bluebook (online)
63 N.E. 1005, 196 Ill. 472, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reed-v-jennings-ill-1902.