Riddle v. Todd

28 N.E.2d 326, 306 Ill. App. 252, 1940 Ill. App. LEXIS 804
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJune 28, 1940
DocketGen. No. 9,547
StatusPublished

This text of 28 N.E.2d 326 (Riddle v. Todd) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Riddle v. Todd, 28 N.E.2d 326, 306 Ill. App. 252, 1940 Ill. App. LEXIS 804 (Ill. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Dove

delivered the opinion of the court.

On April 26,1922, Oliver A. Burkhart and Carrie J. Burkhart, his wife, executed their several notes aggregating $16,000 and secured the payment thereof by a trust deed, by which they conveyed to Frank H. Biddle, trustee, certain farm lands in Kane county. These notes were held and owned by Lottie Perrine, William Holzheuter, Charles Carnes, Peter Weber and the said Frank H. Biddle. In 1929 Frank H. Biddle was indebted to the firm of White & Todd lumber dealers in the sum of $1,787.83 and on or about April 10, 1929, Biddle delivered three of the Burkhart notes aggregating $3,000 to Messrs. White and Todd as security for his indebtedness to them. On December 27,1930, White and Todd, together with the other noteholders, filed a bill in the circuit court of Kane county to foreclose the Burkhart trust deed which resulted in a decree of foreclosure and sale. This decree found the amount due the several noteholders, including Messrs. White and Todd, and directed the master to sell in case of default. On November 2, 1932, the master in chancery sold the premises described in the Burkhart trust deed to Judge Olney C. Allen who acted for and on behalf of the several noteholders, for $23,000 and on November 11, 1932, he accepted as part payment of the purchase price a receipt executed by the attorneys representing Messrs. White and Todd, for $4,723.46, being the amount found by the decree to be due, together with $23.62 interest thereon, leaving a deficiency due them of $78.38. On November 21, 1932, the master filed his report of sale showing that he had accepted this receipt of Messrs. White and Todd for $4,723.46 which he credited upon the purchase price, that there remained due them the sum of $78.38, that they had expended in connection with said foreclosure suit $187.50 for taxes, $61 for extending the abstract of title, $344.85 attorney fees and $25 for costs, being a total of $618.35. The master further reported that the amount due from Frank H. Riddle to Messrs. White and Todd for the payment of which Messrs. White and Todd had held the Burkhart notes was $2,260.76, which amount, together with said sum of $618.35 aggregates $2,879.11.

On December 31, 1937, the instant complaint was filed by M. Jennie Riddle in the circuit court of Kane county against George H. Todd and Arthur Todd, a partnership doing business as White and Todd, alleging that she was the assignee of the said Frank H. Riddle and invested with all the right and title to the proceeds of the Burkhart notes hereinbefore referred to, that Frank H. Riddle, on April 10, 1928 had deposited those notes with Messrs. White and Todd as security for the payment of the amount due them from Frank H. Riddle, that the trust deed securing the payment of those notes had been foreclosed, that following the sale of the property described in the trust deed, Messrs. White and Todd had received an amount in excess of the amount due them from Frank H. Riddle and prayed for an accounting. The defendants answered, setting forth in detail the transactions of the parties. A hearing was had before the chancellor, resulting in a decree finding the facts as herein stated and further finding that at the master’s sale on November 2, 1932, there were no bidders present; that by an agreement of all the noteholders, including White and Todd, Judge Allen bid in the property for $23,000, being the face value of all the notes secured by said trust deed, together with accrued interest thereon, as trustee for all of said noteholders; that the master received no money, other than the costs, but accepted receipts from the various noteholders for the respective amounts due them; that the defendants never received any sum of money whatever as a result of said sale, nor did any of the other noteholders; that in said foreclosure proceeding Frank H. Riddle was not a party in his individual capacity and that no effort was made in the foreclosure proceedings to foreclose the pledge of the interest Frank H. Riddle had in the notes which he had theretofore pledged to the .defendants White and Todd; that the pledge exists; that the effect of the foreclosure proceedings was to place the title of the premises covered by the trust deed in Judge Allen as trustee for the benefit of all the noteholders and the certificate of beneficial interest in the premises issued by Judge Allen to the defendants White and Todd stands in lieu of said notes which Frank H. Riddle had pledged to White and Todd and that the plaintiff, as assignee of Frank H. Riddle, is not entitled to an accounting or entitled to recover any amount of money from the defendants, nor is she entitled to the certificate of beneficial interest issued to the defendants by Judge Allen until the amount due the defendants from Frank H. Riddle has been paid in full. The decree dismissed the complaint for want of equity at the costs of the plaintiff and to reverse that decree plaintiff appeals.

The evidence discloses that there was no agreement between the pledgor and pledgee respecting the notes which Frank H. Riddle lodged with appellees to secure his indebtedness to them and counsel for appellant state in their brief that under the circumstances shown to exist here appellees had a right to join with other holders of the notes secured by the Burkhart trust deed and foreclose the same. Peacock v. Phillips, 247 Ill. 467. Counsel contend, however, that appellee’s character was that of trustee for the pledgor and that it was their duty, as such trustee, to collect said notes and when collected to retain the amount due them and pay over the balance to the pledgor or to appellant as his assignee. Counsel’s argument is that the premises covered by the trust deed were sold by the master and that appellees, as noteholders, receipted for their proportionate part of the sum realized from said sale, that appellees are bound by the recitals in their receipt to the master and must be held to have collected that amount and are therefore liable to account to appellant for the excess over and above the amount due them on the indebtedness of Frank H. Biddle to them. The trouble with this argument is that appellees have not only never received any excess over and above the amount due them upon the Frank H. Biddle indebtedness but have never been paid or received any part thereof. All that the foreclosure proceedings did was to change the form of their security. Counsel concede they had a right to foreclose and if at the foreclosure sale a stranger had purchased the property and appellees, as pledgees, had received a sum in excess of the amount due them, then they would have been liable to account for the excess to the pledgor or his assignee. Frank II. Biddle, the pledgor, was not made a party to the foreclosure proceedings and he was not bound by order or decree entered therein and that proceeding did not foreclose the pledge existing between him and appellees. . The foreclosure of the trust deed did not affect the pledge but only changed the form of appellee’s security and the bidding in of the property by Judge Allen as trustee did not constitute a sale in the sense that the price bid was a payment of Frank H. Biddle’s debt to appellees.

In Farmers’ Savings Bank v. Lesky, 6 F. (2d) 539, it appeared that S. K. Lesky in 1919 borrowed $1,000 from the Farmers Savings Bank of West Plains, Mo., evidencing the same by his note due six months after date and pledged with the bank as collateral security therefor a promissory note for $4,500 secured by a mortgage on 320 acres of land in Montana.

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Bluebook (online)
28 N.E.2d 326, 306 Ill. App. 252, 1940 Ill. App. LEXIS 804, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/riddle-v-todd-illappct-1940.