Standard Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Miller

114 S.W.2d 1201, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 998
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 11, 1938
DocketNo. 13667.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 114 S.W.2d 1201 (Standard Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Miller) 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
Standard Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Miller, 114 S.W.2d 1201, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 998 (Tex. Ct. App. 1938).

Opinion

DUNKLIN, Chief Justice.

On October 2, 1936, this suit was instituted in the district court of Tarrant county, in the Seventeenth judicial district, by the *1203 Standard Savings & Loan 'Association, of Detroit, Mich., and D. D. Mclnroe, against E. J. Miller, H. L. Camp, and his wife, Dot-tie Lee Camp. It was alleged that the defendant Miller is a resident citizen of Brownwood, Brown county, Tex., and the residence of the defendants H.' L. Camp and wife is unknown.

The following facts were alleged in plaintiffs’ petition: On March 27, 1930, the defendants Camp and wife executed to the plaintiff Standard Savings & Loan Association their promissory note in the principal sum of $1,200, payable at Fort Worth, Tex., with interest thereon from date until paid at the rate of 7⅘ per cent, per annum, payable monthly on the last business day' of each and every month, with the further provision that default in the payment of interest for four months after it became due would give the holder of the note option to declare the whole debt due and payable, principal and interest. Contemporaneously with the execution of the note, Camp and wife also executed and delivered to plaintiff their certain deed of trust to secure the payment of the note on lot 16, in block 3, in Brownwood Heights addition to Brownwood, Brown county, Tex. At the time of the execution of the deed of trust, there were permanent improvements upon the lot, consisting of a dwelling house and a garage, which were attached to the soil and became a portion of the real estate covered by the deed of trust. Thereafter, on June 18, 1931, Camp and wife, by their warranty deed, conveyed the front 65 feet of the lot above described to defendant E. J. Miller, and on December 5, 1931, conveyed the balance of the lot to Miller, both of which deeds were duly recorded in the records of deeds of Brown county. By the terms of the deed last mentioned, Miller took the property, subject to the mortgage lien in favor of plaintiff. The garage mentioned was located upon the lot on December 5, 1931, the date of the last deed. After the execution of that deed, Miller, without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiff, removed the garage from its permanent location on lot 16 to another lot belonging to Miller, to wit, lot No. 15. After Miller’s acquisition of the lot, the defaults were made in the payment of interest upon the note, whereupon plaintiff filed a suit in the district court of Tarrant county, of the Forty-eighth judicial district, against Camp and wife and Miller, to recover judgment on the note and to foreclose the mortgage lien upon said lot. At the time of filing that suit, plaintiff did not know of the removal of the garage, and did not in its pleadings ask any relief in regard thereto.

On December 5, 1934, judgment was rendered in said cause in favor of the plaintiff against the defendant H. L. Camp for the sum of $1,213.96, with interest thereon, for all costs of suit, with foreclosure of its mortgage lien to the extent of $1,103.59 of that amount upon the lot above described and upon the dwelling house which defendant Miller had partially moved from said lot onto lot 15, but there was no specific foreclosure of the lien upon the garage which had been theretofore removed from lot 16. Subsequently, lot. 16, together with the dwelling house that had been partially moved upon lot 15, was sold at public ven-due, under an order of sale issued upon said foreclosure judgment, and plaintiff became the purchaser thereof, for the sum of $600, which, after paying costs of sale and other court costs, left a balance unpaid on the judgment of $759.94, together with interest from the date of the judgment. After said sale, plaintiff discovered that the garage had been moved off of lot 16 by Miller, and thereupon Mclnroe, acting for the plaintiff, caused it to be moved back on lot 16. The order of sale did not give plaintiff the right to move the garage back on lot 16, but it was moved back because Mclnroe was of the opinion that plaintiff had a right to such removal, since the garage was at all times covered by the lien of the plaintiff association, and constituted real estate subject to the deed of trust lien.

There is now pending in the county court pf Brown county a suit instituted by Miller against plaintiff association and its coplaintiff, D. D. McInroe, for damages for the alleged wrongful removal of the garage by plaintiffs from said lot 15 back to said lot 16. In the instant suit it was alleged that the defendant Miller is technically the owner of the garage, but that the same is subject to the plaintiff’s mortgage lien, above mentioned, to secure the unpaid balance of the personal judgment against the Camps, which is far in excess of the value of the garage.

Plaintiffs’ petition includes these allegations : That said Camp and his wife are insolvent, and plaintiff association is unable to collect any part of said judgment from either of them. That the said county court is without jurisdiction in said suit to hear or determine the question of plain *1204 tiff association’s lien upon said garage, or its right to foreclose the same or any fact in regard to the existence or nonexistence of such lien, for the reason that the said garage has at all times been and still is real estate and subject to plaintiff association’s real estate lien thereon; with further allegations that in removing the garage McInroe acted solely for the benefit of plaintiff association. The petition concludes with the following: “Wherefore, plaintiff Association prays that it have judgment establishing the' existence of its said lien upon said garage from the time of the execution of said deed of trust and other liens herein alleged to the present time, and for foreclosure thereof as against all defendants herein, and that plaintiffs have a temporary injunction as hereinbefore prayed for, and that upon final hearing they have a permanent injunction enjoining the defendant, Miller, from the prosecution of said County Court suit, and for such other and further relief as they may be entitled to in law or equity.”

The temporary injunction prayed for was issued and served. No citation was issued and served upon either H. L. Camp or his wife, nor was there any answer filed in this suit for them.

On October 20, 1936, the defendant Miller filed his plea of privilege to be sued in Brown county, the place of his residence, alleging that he is now and has at all times for more than 30 years been a bona fide resident citizen of Brown county, and was not at the time the process was served upon him nor at the time of the filing of this plea a resident of Tarrant county; that none of the exceptions to exclusive venue in the county of one’s residence, as set out in articles 1995 and 2390 of the Revised Civil Statutes of the state of Texas, exist in this cause; nor does this cause come within any of the exceptions provided by law for venue in special cases, under the civil statutes of the state of Texas, allowing a person to be sued outside of the county of his residence. Said defendant’s plea of privilege contained these further allegations, which are in the nature of an exception to the sufficiency of the petition:

“That the plaintiff does not purport or pretend to allege any facts that would give this Honorable Court venue of the purported cause of action, by plaintiffs alleged.

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Bluebook (online)
114 S.W.2d 1201, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 998, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/standard-savings-loan-assn-v-miller-texapp-1938.