Rosenhouse v. Kimbrig

147 So. 2d 354, 1962 Fla. App. LEXIS 3653
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedJuly 27, 1962
DocketNo. 2861
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 147 So. 2d 354 (Rosenhouse v. Kimbrig) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rosenhouse v. Kimbrig, 147 So. 2d 354, 1962 Fla. App. LEXIS 3653 (Fla. Ct. App. 1962).

Opinion

ALLEN, Acting Chief Judge.

Appellant, defendant in the lower court, is appealing from a summary final decree of foreclosure entered in favor of plaintiff-appellees.

The decree appealed contains 18 paragraphs and various rulings incorporated in the se feral paragraphs have been assigned as error. However, the arguments in the respective briefs go only to one question, to-wit: the correctness vel non of paragraph 5 of said decree wherein the chancellor held that no genuine issue of fact existed and that plaintiffs were entitled to a final decree of foreclosure as a matter of law. One of the findings in said paragraph 5 was that the interest charged on the mortgage loan was lawful. This finding forms the roots of appellant’s contentions on appeal since the material issue of fact purportedly unresolved by the chancellor surrounds the existence, if any, of usurious interest charged for the mortgage loan.

The foreclosure suit was filed against Florie Builders, Inc., as mortgagor and maker of the mortgage note and M. H. Rosenhouse and wife as sureties on said note by endorsement. The final decree was entered against all parties defendant but only M. H. Rosenhouse has appealed.

On December 12, 1957, defendant, Florie Builders, Inc., executed a note for $12,500, payable in one year with interest of $1600 payable at the rate of $400 quarter-annually, to Samuel Kaplan to evidence the latter’s loan to said corporation. Said note was endorsed by the appellant, an attorney, and was secured by a 25 acre tract of vacant land in Brevard County. The corporation had been in existence since 1954 and had owned the property mortgaged since May 6, 1957. The corporation was owned by members of appellant’s family and its principal officers were appellant’s brother and law partner, D. L. Rosenhouse. and the latter’s wife.

Appellant approached Flerbert E. Kaufman, attorney for appellees, in November of 1957 in regard to obtaining for the corporation a mortgage loan on the Brevard County property. Kaufman proposed the loan to a client, Samuel Kaplan, who agreed to loan the corporation $12,500. The interest rate as described above, $1600 for one year, is approximately 13'% per annum. Kaplan forwarded $12,500 to Kaufman to consummate the loan. After satisfaction of an existing mortgage previously given by the corporation, and obtaining a mortgagee’s title insurance policy, the transaction was closed by Kaufman upon the execution of the note and mortgage by the corporation and endorsement of the note by appellant. The corporation received from Kaufman $11,741.50, being the proceeds of the $12,500 loan less a $750 fee to Kaufman and $8.50 referred to as “certain minor adjustments.”

[356]*356On December 20, 1957, four days after the closing, the corporation conveyed the property, subject to the mortgage, to appellant outright.

At maturity the note was not paid and on December 16, 1958, a written extension agreement was entered into between the corporation as maker and Samuel Kaplan as payee, to which appellant consented by endorsement, providing for extension of maturity to December 15, 1959, and for payments on account of principal and interest at the rate of 13% per annum.

On January 16, 1959, Samuel Kaplan assigned the note and mortgage as extended to appellees, his children. Appellees purportedly paid their father $12,000, as the unpaid principal balance, for the assignment although appellant denies that such payment was made. The balance due was not paid on the extended maturity date and a further written extension agreement was made between appellees- and the corporation and endorsed by appellant, extending maturity for unpaid principal to December 1, 1960, with interest at 13%. Payment was not made as agreed and after demand the instant foreclosure suit was filed.

Affidavits of Kaufman and the Kaplans were filed in support of appellees’ motion for summary decree. The only affidavit in opposition to the motion was made by appellant. 'In this affidavit, appellant asserted, inter alia, that he was the actual borrower and that the loan was nominally made to the corporation to circumvent the usury statutes which prohibit charging an individual interest in excess of 10 per cent per annum. See F.S. Sections 687.02 and 687.-03, F.S.A. Also appearing in the record are depositions of the Kaplans taken in New York by appellant with Kaufman in attendance and cross-examining.

Though the exhibits on file show the borrower to be a corporation, appellant contends that the depositions and affidavits on file raise a question of fact as to whether the borrower was a natural person, namely appellant. He also contends that, even if the borrower be deemed to have been a corporation, interest in excess of the 15 per cent per annum permitted to be charged a corporation by F.S. Sections 687.02 and 687.03, F.S.A., was charged in this case because of the $750 paid to Kaufman. In this regard, appellant states that a material issue of fact remains unresolved concerning the status of Kaufman in the transaction involved. Appellant asserts that Kaufman was the agent for the lender thus rendering the $750 paid to him additional interest. In the alternative, appellant claims that of the $750 received by Kaufman, at least $375 was remitted by him to the lender, Kaplan. If either assertion is true, the interest charged the corporate borrower would have been in excess of 15 per cent and hence usurious.

The record totally fails to support appellant’s contention that the loan was not made to a corporation or that a material issue of fact exists as to this contention. Rather, the record affirms the conclusion that all parties to the loan conceived of it as being made to a corporation. Even though, four days after the loan was closed, the mortgaged premises were conveyed by the corporation to appellant individually “subject to all mortgages, real estate taxes, liens and encumbrances as appear of record” (emphasis supplied), there is no showing that the lender, Samuel Kaplan, could be deemed to have expected or to have known that such a transfer would take place. Moreover, the numerous extensions on the loan which were granted, with apparent amicability, were entered into between the mortgagees and the corporation. The fact that appellant, as endorser on the note and extensions thereto, made all payments drawn on his “special account” is of no independent significance. The rule that the corporate shell to cloak a loan to an individual borrower will not be allowed to defeat the usury laws, enunciated in Gilbert v. Doris R. Corporation, Fla.App. 1959, 111 So.2d 682, cited by appellant, does not apply to the instant case. In Gilbert [357]*357the chancellor found by a preponderance of the evidence that a corporation had been formed at the insistence of the lenders as a prerequisite to their making of the loan and as a sham contrivance to defeat the usury statutes applicable to loans to individuals. In the instant case, the corporate borrower had been in existence for three years and had owned the mortgaged property for six months prior to the time appellant sought to obtain a loan on said property.

After the hearing on the motion for summary decree, the chancellor, at appellant’s request, deferred ruling until appellant should have had an opportunity to take the depositions of appellees and Samuel Kaplan in Suffolk County, New York.

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

Related

Rosenhouse v. Kimbrig
149 So. 2d 47 (Supreme Court of Florida, 1962)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
147 So. 2d 354, 1962 Fla. App. LEXIS 3653, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rosenhouse-v-kimbrig-fladistctapp-1962.