Springfield Engine & Thresher Co. v. Park

29 N.E. 444, 3 Ind. App. 173, 1891 Ind. App. LEXIS 251
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 10, 1891
DocketNo. 308
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 29 N.E. 444 (Springfield Engine & Thresher Co. v. Park) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Springfield Engine & Thresher Co. v. Park, 29 N.E. 444, 3 Ind. App. 173, 1891 Ind. App. LEXIS 251 (Ind. Ct. App. 1891).

Opinion

Reinhard, J. —

Action on a note executed to the appellant by Horace Park, as principal, and Mary Park, the appellee, as surety. The complaint was in one paragraph, to which the appellee filed an answer in two paragraphs. To each of the paragraphs of the answer the appellant filed a demurrer, which was overruled. The plaintiff then replied in four paragraphs, and, the issues having been thus joined, there was a trial by jury. A special verdict was returned, and each party moved for judgment upon the same. There was also a motion by appellant fpr a venire de novo, and a motion for [175]*175a new trial. These motions were each overruled, and judgment was rendered on the verdict in favor of the appellee. To each of the court’s rulings against it the appellant reserved a proper exception.

The first question to which our attention is directed is the overruling of the appellant’s demurrer to the first and second paragraphs of the answer.

It is averred in the second paragraph that the appellee executed the note in suit as surety for Horace Park, her comaker, which was well known to the appellant at the time; that the note was signed by Horace several days before the appellee signed it, and that said Horace, at the time he signed such note, also executed other notes to the appellant and secured them all by a chattel mortgage on certain personal property in Hamilton county, «Indiana, where said Horace resided, and that the appellant accepted the mortgage and had it duly recorded within ten days from the time of its execution; that, among others, the mortgage contained the following stipulation'1: It is further expressly agreed that in case any of the notes hereby secured shall not be paid fully at the maturity thereof, then and in such case all of the notes hereby secured shall, at the option of the mortgagee, become due and collectible;” that the individual note of said Horace, so secured by said mortgage, was of even date with the note now in suit, calling for the sum of $200, payable on or before December 25th, 1887; that the appellee, when she executed the note in suit, had no knowledge whatever that the appellant had or intended to take a mortgage of any kind whatever, or of the character and containing the agreement aforesaid in relation to the nonpayment of said notes, and never consented or agreed that said notes should become due and collectible in any manner other than that provided for on the face thereof; that after the maturity of said Horace’s individual note, on the 25th day of December, 1887, and the same remaining unpaid, the plaintiff did, on the 15th day of October, 1888, elect, under [176]*176said agreement contained in said mortgage, to treat all of said mortgage notes as due and collectible, and filed its complaint and proceeded to foreclose its chattel mortgage, resulting in a personal judgment against said Horace for the total amount of all said'notes, including the one in suit, and another upon which the appellee was surety, and a decree of foreclosure of the mortgage and an order of sale for the property and the subsequent sale of such property by virtue of such judgment and decree. Wherefore, etc.

It is very plain that in this paragraph of the answer the pleader attempts to set up the concealment of a fact amounting to fraud, though the appellee's counsel, in their brief, deny having any such object in view. If such concealment has the effect of discharging the surety it can only be upon the ground of fraud ¿ if it does not amount to this, it is no defence.

The appellant contends that the gist of this answer is a change in the contract after it was made; but the facts pleaded do not show that the contract was in any manner changed or modified after the appellee signed the note, and if the terms of the contract were at any time made different from those stipulated in the note which appellee signed, it was done before such signing took place. But the facts alleged in this paragraph do show that at the time of the execution of the note by the surety there existed between the principal debtor and the appellant another contract, in the form of a chattel mortgage, by virtue of which, in certain contingencies the note which appellee signed was to become due earlier, as against the principal, than the time at which the maturity was fixed in the note itself; and that this contingency actually happened before the time the note became due as to the surety, and the payee, taking advantage of the provisions of his collateral agreement with the principal, elected to treat the note as due, and took judgment thereon against such principal.

If this collateral and contemporaneous agreement between [177]*177the principal and payee of the note, of which it is alleged the surety was ignorant, in any way changed the surety’s liability, the concealment operates as a fraud upon such surety, and will discharge her; for it is a well-known rule of equity jurisprudence that if the creditor conceals from one about to become a surety any material fact whereby his risk is increased, and suffers the surety to enter into the contract under a false impression as to the real state of facts, such concealment will amount to a fraud, and will release the surety. 1 Story Eq. sec. 215 ; Wilson v. Town of Monticello, 85 Ind. 10 ; Franklin Bank v. Cooper, 36 Maine, 179 ; Brandt Suretyship, etc., section 366 ; 9 Am. & Eng. Encyc. of Law, 80 et seq.; De Colyar Guarantees,etc., 360.

The facts alleged in this paragraph show that there was an option clause in the chattel mortgage, by virtue of which the notes, if any one of them was not paid when due, might, at the volition of the payee, all become due at once. It is alleged that this fact was unknown to the appellee. If the appellant had not sued upon the notes prior to their maturity as against the surety, we presume it would hardly be claimed that anything had occurred which would operate as a discharge of the surety.

The question is whether the exercise of this option, and taking a judgment against the principal prior to the time when the surety’s liability accrued on the note, rendered the original transaction of such a character as to taint it with fraud.

The mere fact that the creditor takes additional security at the time of the execution of the contract by the surety will not of1 itself discharge the latter, unless the additional security operates as a satisfaction of the debt or changes the liability of the surety. Pittman Prin. and Surety, 201; Brandt Suretyship, etc., sections 320, 321 ; Morga v. Martien, 32 Mo. 438.

In the case just cited the creditor, after the execution of [178]*178the contract by the surety, took from the principal debtor a deed of trust for the debt, made to certain trustees for the creditor and others. The conditions of the deed were that if any of the notes became due and remained unpaid for thirty days, then all the notes should become due, and payable as though due by the face thereof, etc. Some of the notes were signed by the principal alone. The surety on the note sued upon, by his answer, claimed there was a change of contract to his prejudice and without his knowledge or consent, denied any consent to the execution of the deed of trust, by which the contract embraced in the note sued on was changed, and asked to be relieved from further liability. In the trial court it was adjudged that the surety, by virtue of the new contract evidenced by the deed of trust, was released.

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Bluebook (online)
29 N.E. 444, 3 Ind. App. 173, 1891 Ind. App. LEXIS 251, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/springfield-engine-thresher-co-v-park-indctapp-1891.