Regan v. Williams

88 Mo. App. 577, 1901 Mo. App. LEXIS 99
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 23, 1901
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 88 Mo. App. 577 (Regan v. Williams) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Regan v. Williams, 88 Mo. App. 577, 1901 Mo. App. LEXIS 99 (Mo. Ct. App. 1901).

Opinion

GOODE, J.

The sale of the land by the original mortgagor, Williams, to the Scott Investment Company, and the assumption of the incumbrance by the latter, converted said company into the principal debtor with reference to the incumbrance, and the defendant into a surety. Wayman v. Jones, 58 Mo. App. 313; Nelson v. Brown, 140 Mo. 580; Pratt v. Conway, 148 Mo. 291. Timothy Regan, who then held the note and knew all about the arrangement, was bound thereafter to recognize said parties in those capacities. Nelson v. Brown, supra.

We must be controlled by the finding of the lower court that there was no agreement for an extension of time of payment, either between Williams and the,Scott Investment Company, or between the latter and Timothy Regan, at the time the company purchased the land. When the extension was entered on the note, the entire principal and one year’s interest were due. The accrued interest and $1,000 of the principal were paid. It is the law in this State, that a contract like that, for the extension of the time of payment, is without consideration and not binding, so that the creditor may, if he chooses, immediately press for payment despite his agreement to extend; that therefore a surety is not released by such a transaction between the maker and payee. Brown v. Kirk, 20 Mo. App. 524; Owings v. McKenzie, 133 Mo. 323. In some jurisdictions the rule is otherwise where there is not simply an agreement to forbear proceedings to collect, but a formal executed stipulation to postpone the maturity of the instrument. Banson v. Phipps, 87 Texas l. c. 580, and many cases cited. The decisions of the court to which we owe fealty must be followed and we approve the ruling of the learned trial judge that the extension did not discharge the defendant as surety.

II. In reply to the defense that the statute of limitations had run against the note before this action was begun, plain[584]*584tiff asserts that the payments of interest by the Scott Investment Company and Oarey to March 21, 1892, prevented the running of the statute, not only in favoiyof said parties but of the defendant as well. The ruling that payment by a principal will suspend the statute as to a surety, is invoked as applicable, because, by operation of law, the subsequent grantees of the land covered by the deed of trust became principal and the defendant a surety. The proposition contended for is sound enough, generally speaking. Craig v. Calloway, 12 Mo. 94; McClurg v. Howard, 45 Mo. 365; Block v. Dorman, 51 Mo. 31; Vernon Co. v. Stewart, 64 Mo. 408; Bennett v. McCanse, 65 Mo. 194. These payments were made while the note was still alive, and the rule is well established that payments made by the principal, or by one of several joint obligors, before the debt is barred, will stop the statute. But the reason why a payment by the principal stops it as to a surety is not because one is principal and the other surety, but because both are usually joint promisors; that is, the surety is affected by the act of the principal in his capacity as_ a joint promisor. The idea is that persons who jointly bind themselves are all liable to the promisee by virtue of their original agreement, so that performance or part performance by one is the act of all. Sigourney v. Drury, 14 Pick. 387; Brandram v. Wharton, 1 Bar. & Ald. 463; Atkins v. Tredgold, 2 Bar. & Cresw. 23. The principle only applies where the payment was made by one originally liable. Sigourney v. Drury, supra.

Whether or not the statute ceased to run in favor of the defendant when the payments were made by the subsequent grantees, depends, then, on whether he can be considered a joint promisor with them. Undoubtedly he was not. They were not parties to the note when it was made and only became obligated to pay it by subsequent contracts between themselves and the maker, Williams. Their responsibility, far from resting [585]*585on a promise by them given in conjunction with Williams to the payee, Regan, rests exclusively on the promises they made afterwards to assume the debt. In no sense were they joint obligors with him. Their promises neither coincided with his in point of time, nor were made with the same person, nor based on the same consideration. They were separate and distinct undertakings. Maddox v. Duncan, 143 Mo. l. c. 621; Corbyn v. Brokmeyer, 84 Mo. App. 649. Those cases hold that a payment made by one whose promise is collateral, does not interrupt the statute as to the original obligor. The precedents are all against this contention of the appellant. Trustee of Old Almshouse v. Smith, 52 Conn. 434; Cottrell v. Shepard, 86 Wis. 649; Harlock v. Ashberry, 19 Ch. D. 539; Home Life Ins. Co. v. Ellwell, 111 Mich. 689; Princeton Savings Bank v. Martin, 53 N. J. Eq. 463-465; Underwood v. Patrick, 94 Fed. Rep. 468. Zoll v. Carnahan, 83 Mo. 35, is in point by analogy. We hold that the payments of interest made by the Scott Investment Company and by Carey did not prevent the statute from running in favor of the defendant.

III. It is insisted by the appellant, in the second place, that the case is taken out of the statute by the credit Groffe, the trustee, put on the note, of the proceeds arising from the foreclosure sale of the land. The trustee, it is claimed, was the agent of both the mortgagor and mortgagee, and for certain purposes he was; not for that one, however. It was his duty to protect the interests of both parties in the performance of his office and he was liable to either for damages resulting from his misfeasance. Sherwood v. Saxton, 63 Mo. 78. We do nor find in the deed of trust any clause authorizing the trustee to enter a credit on the note of the proceeds of sale in case of foreclosure, but such an act was in the scope of his legal authority. To say that he was empowered by Williams to make such a credit on the latter’s behalf, or that it was contemplated or ex[586]*586pected lie should do so when the deed of trust was executed, would be, in our estimation, a very strained deduction. Notes secured by deeds of trust are commonly paid and the trustee not called on to act; often the land passes from the mortgagor before the debt falls due, under an agreement by the purchaser to assume and pay the incumbrance, as happened here. Williams had no control over the trustee, whose agency, as far as it went, was irrevocable. It is going too far then, we think, to hold the trustee first named, or his possible successors in the persons of different sheriffs, was or were empowered or appointed by the mortgagor to bind him at any subsequent date by crediting the proceeds of a foreclosure on the note. As has well been said, it is not the indorsement of a credit but the payment that operates as a renewal of a promise and removes the bar of the statute of limitations. Curtis v. Nash, 88 Maine 476. The party relying on a payment to stop the statute musx not only establish that it was made, but made by the authority of the defendant. Murdock v. Waterman, 27 L. R. A. 418; Bender v. Blessing, 36 N. T. Sup. 162.- “Part payment does not take a debt out of the statute unless made under such circumstances as to warrant the inference that the debtor thereby recognized the debt and signified his willingness to pay it.” 1 Wood on Limitations, sec. 99. The payments must be made by or with the consent of the payor. Gardner v. Early, 78 Mo. App. 346; Phillips v. Mahan, 52 Mo. 197. If credits are entered by the holder, without the knowledge or consent of the payor, they are ineffective to check the statute. Goddard v. Williamson, Admr., 72 Mo. 131; Loewer v. Haug, 20 Mo. App. 163.

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Bluebook (online)
88 Mo. App. 577, 1901 Mo. App. LEXIS 99, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/regan-v-williams-moctapp-1901.