Steedley v. Steedley

181 S.E. 700, 51 Ga. App. 771, 1935 Ga. App. LEXIS 469
Court of Appeals of Georgia·Decided September 24, 1935·No. 24456·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinions

Stephens, J.

This was a proceeding by M. H. Steedley to dispossess J. M. Steedley as a tenant at sufferance, whose sole defense was that he did not hold the premises from the plaintiff or from any one under whom the plaintiff claimed. The plaintiff claimed title derived from the sale of the premises under a power of sale conveyed by the defendant in a deed to secure debt. A verdict for the plaintiff was directed. The sole question for determination, as presented by the record and the arguments in the briefs of counsel, is whether the deed conveying the premises as security for the debt which was made by J. M. Steedley to Walter Bennett on April 11, 1925, and recorded in the clerk’s office in deed book 3 page 514, and which contained a power of sale to the grantee or his assigns, was, together with the power of sale, transferred by an assignment by a separate instrument in writing dated January 10, 1930, which reads as follows: “For value received, I, Walter Bennett, do hereby sell, assign, transfer, and convey unto the Blackshear Bank, its successors and assigns, the certain deed to secure debt executed by James M. Steedley to-on-, recorded in the office of the clerk of the superior court of Bacon County, Georgia, in deed book 3, beginning at page 214, on April 14, 1925, together with the debt thereby secured and the real estate therein described, and all rights, powers, privileges, and benefits by said security deed conferred upon me to secure and enforce the payment of the debt in said security deed described.”

If the latter instrument constituted an assignment of all the rights of the grantee in the security deed, together with the assignment of the power of sale therein, the court did not err in admitting the assignment in evidence over objection, and the evidence demanded the verdict as directed. If this instrument did not constitute such an assignment, the plaintiff, whose title to the land was dependent upon the validity of the assignment, acquired no title to the land by the sale under power, and a verdict for the plaintiff was not authorized. Any extrinsic evidence which is not inconsistent with or contradictory of anything contained in the written assignment is relevant and material as tending to identify the deed to secure debt, containing the power of sale purporting to be assigned by the entry of transfer, Shiver v. Young, 38 Ga. App. 409 (144 S. E. 129). The only evidence tending to aid in the construction of the assignment and to identify the deed to secure [773] debt purported to be assigned thereby was the testimony of the clerk of the superior court, to the effect that since the date of the execution of the security deed by James ME. Steedley to Walter Bennett, which was on April 11, 1925, he had found no record of any other security deed from James M. Steedley to Walter Bennett, and that according to the record the security deed from James M. Steedley to Walter Bennett, dated April 11, 1925, was recorded April 14, 1925, in deed book No. 3, not at page 214 but at page 514, and that in the entry on the back of the deed the figure 5 is not clear and looks a good deal like the figure 2. Also, the evidence of the vice-president of the Blackshear Bank, that the bank had never held any transfer of the security deed from James M. Steedley to Walter Bennett other than the transfer herein referred to, and that the security deed herein referred to is the only security deed from James M. Steedley to Walter Bennett ever held by the Blackshear Bank.

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Steedley v. Steedley, 181 S.E. 700, 51 Ga. App. 771, 1935 Ga. App. LEXIS 469 (Ga. Ct. App. 1935).

181 S.E. 700 (Steedley v. Steedley) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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Steedley v. Steedley
187 S.E. 719 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1936)