Scroggin v. Beckett

252 P. 948, 120 Or. 687, 1927 Ore. LEXIS 40
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 6, 1927
StatusPublished

This text of 252 P. 948 (Scroggin v. Beckett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Scroggin v. Beckett, 252 P. 948, 120 Or. 687, 1927 Ore. LEXIS 40 (Or. 1927).

Opinion

BURNETT, C. J.

This is a suit in foreclosure by the assignee of some notes and mortgages securing the same. It includes as defendants not only the original makers of the notes and mortgages but likewise the trustee in bankruptcy of those makers. Of the defendants charged, C. H. Houser and U. J. Henderson were partners comprising the firm of Henderson and Houser, engaged in the automobile business at Sheridan. They borrowed money Horn the First National Bank of Sheridan in the amount of $27,500.00 and with their wives gave mortgages, one on realty in that vicinity and the other a chattel mortgage on the stock of goods and machinery in the establishment they were conducting at the time. There were four notes, all payable on demand, two dated July 2, 1920, one for $7,000 and the other for $3,000; and the two others dated October 14, 1920, for $14,500 and $3,000, respectively. The chattel mortgage contained a provision to the effect that in default of payment of the notes, the mortgagee would have a right to seize the personalty and sell it at a public or private sale, applying the proceeds upon the notes secured. These notes and securities were given to the First National Bank at their inception and afterwards sold and indorsed to the present plaintiff. On May 16, 1924, the plaintiff took possession of the chattels and sold them at private sale to *689 one Embrey for $13,000, crediting the amount to the extinction of the two notes dated July 2, 1920. This suit is to foreclose the real estate mortgage on the realty for the balance of the indebtedness.

Soon after the seizure and sale of the chattels, the firm of Henderson and Houser went into bankruptcy and the defendant Beckett was elected the trustee of their estate. He commenced a suit in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon against the present plaintiff Scroggin, the First National Bank of Sheridan and Robert Embrey, who claims to have brought the chattels from Scroggin, but the original mortgagors were not made parties to that suit. In that proceeding, the trustee attacked the securities and sought to cancel them on the grounds, among other things, that they were executed and acknowledged in the presence of Scrog-gin, acting as notary public, although at the time he was the owner of all the stock of the bank except a few shares to qualify directors and was practically taking the acknowledgment of his own mortgages. Also, the trustee urged that the mortgagors were allowed to remain in possession of the chattels and to sell them in the ordinary course of trade and likewise that the notes had been paid. In that suit the defendants answered and after a regular hearing before the United States District Court, the plaintiff’s bill was dismissed. In the present suit brought by permission of the United States court in the Circuit Court for Yamhill County, the referee alone appears and makes the same attack upon the notes and mortgages that he did in the United States court, and in addition thereto contends that under the rules promulgated by the United States Supreme Court for equity practice in the various inferior courts of the United States, it was the imperative duty of the *690 present plaintiff to set np as a counterclaim in that suit his notes and mortgages and to demand foreclosure of them in that proceeding and that not having done so, he is concluded by the judgment in that court and barred in the state court from attempting to foreclose his mortgages.

The rule principally relied upon by the defendant is Rule 30 of the New Federal Equity Rules of 1912, promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States, which follows:

“The defendant by his answer shall set out in short and simple terms his defense to each claim asserted in the bill, omitting mere statements of evidence and avoiding general denials, but specifically admitting denying or explaining the facts upon which the plaintiff relies, unless he is without knowledge, in which event he shall so state, and this shall be treated as a denial. Averments other than those of value or amount of damage, when not denied, shall, be deemed confessed, except as against an infant, lunatic or other person non compos and not under guardianship, but the answer may be amended, by leave of the court or judge, upon reasonable notice, so as to put any averment in issue, when justice requires it. The answer may state as many defenses, in the alternative, regardless of consistency, as the defendant deems essential to his defense.
“The answer must state in short and simple form any counterclaim arising out of the transaction which is the subject-matter of the suit, and may, without cross-bill, set up any set-off or counterclaim against the plaintiff which might be the subject of an independent suit in equity against him, and such set-off or counterclaim, so set up, shall have the same effect as a cross-suit, so as to enable the court to pronounce a final decree in the same suit on both the original and the cross-claims.
“When in the determination of a counterclaim complete relief cannot be granted without the pres *691 ence of parties other than those to the bill, the court shall order them to be brought in as defendants if they are subject to its jurisdiction.”

Commenting on this rule in Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange, 270 U. S. 593 (45 A. L. R. 1370, 70 L. Ed. 750, 46 Sup. Ct. Rep. 367, 371), Mr. Justice Sutherland, speaking for the court, said:

“Two classes of counterclaims thus are provided for: (a) One ‘rising out of the transaction which is the subject matter of the suit,’ which must be pleaded; and (b) another ‘which might be the subject of an independent suit in equity’ and which may be brought forward at the option of the defendant.”

In Black on Bankruptcy, Section 950, it is said:

“A mortgage creditor has the right to institute proceedings in the court of bankruptcy to enforce his lien and to reach other assets. But proceedings of this kind are generally taken in the state courts, and a mortgagee who files his claim as a secured claim in the bankruptcy proceedings, but does not have his right to foreclose the mortgage adjudicated in the federal court is not thereby barred or estopped from suing in the state court. And it is a general rule that the jurisdiction of a state court over a pending foreclosure suit is not divested by the adjudication of the mortgagor in bankruptcy, and if the mortgage was given more than four months before the filing of the petition in bankruptcy, and its validity is not assailed on any other ground under the bankruptcy law, the state court may proceed to foreclosure and sale, and the mortgagee should not be stayed by injunction from either the court of bankruptcy or the state court. In such a case, the trustee in bankruptcy is a proper party to the suit in the state court, where he must appear and assert his rights, and he should apply for leave to intervene, or he may be directed by the bankruptcy court so to apply.”

*692

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Related

Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange
270 U.S. 593 (Supreme Court, 1926)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
252 P. 948, 120 Or. 687, 1927 Ore. LEXIS 40, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/scroggin-v-beckett-or-1927.