Sanders v. Peck

30 Ill. App. 238, 1888 Ill. App. LEXIS 264
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedFebruary 13, 1889
StatusPublished

This text of 30 Ill. App. 238 (Sanders v. Peck) 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
Sanders v. Peck, 30 Ill. App. 238, 1888 Ill. App. LEXIS 264 (Ill. Ct. App. 1889).

Opinion

Moran, J.

This suit was commenced October 9, 1874, by appellees filing a bill to reform and foreclose a trust deed .which has been known in the litigation as the Jewett trust deed, and which was made to secure certain bonds therein described of the amount of $1,000,000, of the first $100,000 preferred of which, appellees were owners. To that bill appellant was made a defendant, and after answering, filed his cross-bill, and cross-bills were filed by various other defendants, some of which set up and asserted mortgage liens on the property covered by the Jewett trust deed prior to the lien of said trust deed. Besides the Peck bill, three other original bills were filed by parties claiming rights and interests in the property, and in all, eight cross-bills were filed by defendants to these original bills, seeking on various grounds to obtain affirmative relief.

By agreement of all the parties, all these cases on the bills and cross-bills were heard together, with the understanding that the testimony taken at the hearing should, so far as applicable, be considered in each case. The litigation progressed to a decree in the Circuit Court, which decree, after being affirmed in this court, was reversed by the Supreme Court, and the case remanded to the Circuit Court for further proceedings in conformity with the opinion of the Supreme Court.

The issues under the various pleadings, and the facts as they appeared in the record as then made up, are fully stated in the report of the case in the Supreme Court, found in the 112 Ill. 408. This appeal brings up for review the decree entered by the Circuit Court, in pursuance of the remanding order. Between the date of the filing of the bill by appellees and the redocketing of the case in the Circuit Court under said remanding order, something about fourteen years had elapsed, and it was claimed by appellants that certain changes had taken place in the condition of the parties and of the property, and certain circumstances had arisen since the filing of the bill which were proper to be considered, and various errors are now assigned upon the action of the court in not allowing a supplemental answer and cross-bill to be filed by appellant, as well as error in overruling certain exceptions of appellant to the master’s report, and in failing and refusing to grant to appellant the relief to which he is entitled under the pleadings and evidence in the case.

Appellant was the owner, before the filing of the original bill, of 301 lots of land at Riverside, all of which lots were subject to the lien of the Jewett trust deed. He was also the holder of 195 bonds of the Great Western Railroad Company, which he contended he was entitled to surrender to Jewett, the trustee, in redemption of his lots from the lien of the Jewett trust deed, according to a certain schedule of prices agreed upon and fixed by the parties to said trust deed.

In June, 1874, before the filing of the original bill, he tendered to said Jewett his said bonds, which were sufficient in amount to release his said lots from said trust deed, and demanded a release of the same; but said Jewett refused to release them, and appellant in his cross-bill claimed that he was entitled to have said lots released and prayed that the court decree him that relief.

The Supreme Court decided, reversing the decree of the Circuit Court in that as well as other respects, that the appellant was entitled, by the plain terms of the deed of trust, to the release which he demanded.

At the time, appellant offered the bonds to and demanded the release of his lots from Jewett, he supposed that said lots were subject to the lien of said Jewett trust deed only; but by the same decision, in which his right to have his lots released was upheld by the Supreme Court, it was determined that there were other liens prior in right to the said trust deed, and which cover a considerable number of his lots, to the extent of the probable value of such lots. '

On the hearing in the court below, at the entering of the decree appealed from, appellant insisted that he was not bound to surrender all of his said 195 bonds, and take a release from said trust deed of all his 301 lots, but that he had the right to redeem such of said lots as he might elect by surrendering bonds to the amount required by the schedule for such lots as he selected, and asked that it should be so decreed. But the court refused to so order, and, on the contrary, adjudged that he must release the 301 lots if he released any, and he could release none unless he released all, and gave him permission in the decree to release the 301 lots by the surrendering of the 195 bonds.

This portion of the decree is sought to be sustained on the ground that appellant tendered to the trustee in the first place 195 bonds and demanded the release of his said 301 lots, and that in his cross-hill he specifically prayed that the trustee should be compelled to release his said 301 lots on the surrender of these particular 195 bonds, and that it was upon this entire tender of all his bonds to release all his lots that the Supreme Court decided that he was entitled to a release, and to allow him to surrender any less than the 195 bonds and obtain a release of a less number than 301 lots, would be to disobey the order of the Supreme Court remanding the case “for further proceedings in conformity with its opinion.” We can not concur in this view. The provision in the Jewett trust deed relating to the release of the lots is as follows: “The trustee shall, on receiving schedule price of any lot or lots in cash or notes secured by mortgage thereon, or in railroad bonds at par, numbered from 1 to 1,000, both inclusive, release said lot or lots.”

It appears from the opinion of the Supreme Court that the ground on which the release of appellant’s lots was refused was that he had obtained the deeds to his lots by fraud, and the Circuit Court set the deeds aside. This finding the Supreme Court held erroneous, saying: “ The provisions of the trust deed were express, that upon receiving the schedule price of any lot in bonds, the trustee should release the lot from the trust deed. We find no sufficient evidence that the deeds to Sanders were obtained by fraud; and as holder of bonds to the amount of the schedule price of his lots, which he tendered, by the plain terms of the deed of trust he would seem to be entitled to the release which he demanded.” It is obvious that the question which the Supreme Court considered and determined was that Sanders was a Iona fide owner of the lots and of the bonds, and therefore entitled, on paying schedule price of any or all of his lots in bonds, to have such lots or lot released; and not that, having offered the schedule price of the 301 lots in 195 bonds at one time, he must have just that number of lots released, and surrender just that number and amount of bonds. The point was not at all as to the number of lots or as to the amount of bonds, but as to his right to have each of the lots released on surrendering to the trustee bonds to the amount of the schedule price of such lot. The question is not different from what it would have been if the Circuit Court had originally found that Sanders was entitled to a release of his lots.

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Related

Vansant v. Allmon
23 Ill. 30 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1859)
Chicago & Great Western Railroad Land Co. v. Peck
112 Ill. 408 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1885)
Holden v. Holden
24 Ill. App. 106 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1887)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
30 Ill. App. 238, 1888 Ill. App. LEXIS 264, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sanders-v-peck-illappct-1889.