Smith v. National Bond & Mortgage Corp.

150 S.W.2d 333, 1941 Tex. App. LEXIS 302
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 17, 1941
DocketNo. 11180.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 150 S.W.2d 333 (Smith v. National Bond & Mortgage Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Smith v. National Bond & Mortgage Corp., 150 S.W.2d 333, 1941 Tex. App. LEXIS 302 (Tex. Ct. App. 1941).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

This is the second appeal to this court in this cause; formerly it was here under the style of National Debenture Corporation et al. v. Smith et ux., 132 S.W.2d 429. It grew out of three notes of which No. 1 for $2,250 was the principal one given by Smith and wife to the National Bond and Mortgage Corporation on August 28, 1928, all of which were secured by a deed of trust in its favor upon Lots 1 and 2 in Block 20, of the Swiney Addition to the City of Houston, which property the Smiths claimed' as their homestead; Smith and wife in that cause sued the Michigan Realty Company and the National Debenture Corporation, as successors in claims to such indebtedness and security, in tresspass to try title for that property, with alternative counts, setting up usury against the debt claimed to be evidenced thereby, and alleging that the $2,250 note— because of having been accelerated for payment more than four years before the filing of that suit — had been at the date of such filing barred by the 4-year statute of limitations. Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 5527.

This court, in disposing of that appeal, thus described the basis for the. judgment of the trial court there challenged: “In response to special issues the jury found that the original trustee, J. Lewis Thompson, Jr., declared the entire amount of Note No. 1 to be due in the year 1932. The other findings of the jury convicted the loan of being usurious. If the note really matured in 1932, then it was barred in 1937, when the foreclosure was had. The court therefore rendered judgment awarding title and possession of the property to appellees free and clear of the debt evidenced by note No. 1, and the liens securing its payment. And defendants, National Bond & Mortgage Corporation and the Baltimore National Bank, were dismissed from the suit at appellees’ costs. From this judgment Michigan Realty Company and National Debenture Corporation have appealed.”

See 132 S.W.2d 429, 430, 431.

This court reversed that judgment so rendered in favor of the appellants therein, Michigan Realty Company and National Debenture Corporation, upon a principle finding and holding, to the effect that the $2,250 note had not been shown to then be so barred, because the evidence in that record failed to sustain the jury’s finding that its maturity had been accelerated in 1932, or more than 4 years before the filing of that suit.

The present appeal comes from a judgment of the 127th District Court of Harris County, entered May 7, 1940, on a verdict returned by the jury against the Smiths for the title to and possession of the same property, in favor of the appellee, Michigan Realty Company, in response to a peremptory instruction to that effect from the court; it was further subsidiarily decreed that the cross-action, therein filed by the National Debenture Corporation, had become immaterial, hence was superseded by the decree for title, so vested in the Realty Company.

So that Smith and wife have become the appellants against the Michigan Realty Company and the National Debenture Corporation, as the appellees, on this appeal.

Upon examination of the present record, inclusive of the statement of facts, it is concluded that the peremptory instruction, so accorded appellee Realty Company, is fully supported by the evidence, and should be sustained.

Appellants, through able counsel, as they did before, went through a return engagement with their present holders of the in *335 debtedness upon the $2,250 note, which has thus formed the basic subject matter of the controversy through both trials and appeals, over whether or not that note had been so barred by limitation at the time the appellants’ suit herein was originally filed below; which contention depends, in turn, upon whether the evidence they adduced this time showed the maturity of the note to have been accelerated in 1932, thereby making null and void the National Debenture Corporation’s sale of the property under the deed of trust so securing it, which occurred on July 6, 1937.

Indeed, the gist of appellants’ controlling contentions is thought to be embodied in these two presentments in their brief:

“First, that the trustee’s deed is void because: (1) the notices of the sale were not posted by the trustee acting, or by a person directly chosen by the trustee acting; (2) that such notices (although properly prepared) were invalid because the trustee had his name stamped thereon instead of signing it himself; and (3) because the trustee did not, with his own hands, type up the notices, and (4) did not direct the time (the hour and minute) the notices were to be posted or the exact places that they should be posted; and,

“Second, the note was barred by the four-year statute of Limitation at time of foreclosure, and therefore the trustee’s sale did not pass title — or, that there was a jury question raised on limitation.”

In so concreting their protest against the present judgment, appellants do not claim that they have ever paid up this indebtedness (rather, they practically admit their having made total default therein some ten years ago) ; but they still insist, as they did before, that the deed of trust sale for that indebtedness by its holders on July 6 of 1937 was invalid, then, because, first, the contractual provisions in that instrument as to how the sale should be conducted were not substantially carried out at that sale, and, second, because the sale was belated by more than 4 years, after the owners had declared the debt itself due.

This court finds, first, neither any substantial departure from the provisions of the trust deed in the conduct of the sale under it, nor, second, any sufficient evidence adduced by appellants to make a jury issue over whether or not the maturity of the $2,250 note had been so accelerated back in 1932.

On the contrary, if the note itself and its supporting deed of trust be construed together, as it is held should be done, the implications of the two together make it plain that either or both the owner and holder of the note, on the one hand, or the trustee or substitute trustee under the deed of trust, upon the other, had the right of acceleration of such maturity at their option; but they were not bound to exercise it, nor were any of them shown by acts to have done so.

The former decision of this court, through Justice Cody, made very clear its holding that the record then involved contained no such acts toward enforcing an expressed intention — if any had been shown —to accelerate that amounted to any such result in law, and the present record has not cured that deficiency; on the contrary, it consists only of the testimony of the appellants themselves, and none of it raises a jury issue over whether or not the holdv ers of this indebtedness did any affirmative thing whatever looking toward an execution of any proven declaration of theirs to mature the debt; as was before held, Mr. Smith’s testimony, in effect, that he understood Kelly and James — two collectors for the holders of the indebtedness at issue— were wanting all their money, in no manner constituted the requisite proof in this request. Chandler et ux. v.

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Bluebook (online)
150 S.W.2d 333, 1941 Tex. App. LEXIS 302, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smith-v-national-bond-mortgage-corp-texapp-1941.