Strong Hardware Co. v. Gonyow Et Ux.

168 A. 547, 105 Vt. 415, 1933 Vt. LEXIS 233
CourtSupreme Court of Vermont
DecidedOctober 3, 1933
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 168 A. 547 (Strong Hardware Co. v. Gonyow Et Ux.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Vermont primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Strong Hardware Co. v. Gonyow Et Ux., 168 A. 547, 105 Vt. 415, 1933 Vt. LEXIS 233 (Vt. 1933).

Opinion

Slack, J.

This is a suit to foreclose two real estate mortgages. One of them was executed and delivered by the defendants to the Champlain Trust Company, July 13, 1923, and is now owned by the plaintiff. No question is made in this Court regarding plaintiff’s rights under that mortgage. The chancellor found the following facts respecting other material transactions of the parties.

On the day that defendants executed and delivered the above mortgage they executed and delivered to Edgar L. Fairbanks and Mary A. Fairbanks a second mortgage on the same premises, which is conditioned as follows:

“The conditions of this deed are such that if the said Charles Gonyow and Anna Gonyow shall well and truly pay or cause to be paid, unto the *417 said Edgar L. Fairbanks and Mary A. Fairbanks, their heirs or assigns, one certain promissory note, in writing, bearing date of July 13, 1923, for the sum of $800.00, signed by the said Charles and Anna Gonyow and payable to the order of said mortgagees, $15.00 per month, with interest annually, at 5 per cent per annum, according to the tenor thereof; and shall pay any and all other indebtedness of the send Charles Gonyow and Anna Gonyow to the said mortgagees, their heirs and assigns, heretofore or hereafter contracted, and represented by promissory notes or otherwise”; (the italics are ours).

This mortgage and the note therein described were transferred to plaintiff October 22, 1928.

December 5, 1927, the defendants gave L. D. Mills & Son a note for $600 payable six months after date. This note was indorsed to the plaintiff June 28, 1928.

On March 31, 1931, the defendants owed the Commercial Credit Corporation a note for $5,200, which represented the purchase price of three trucks, and ivas secured by a mortgage on such trucks. This note, or part of it, was then due, and the payee offered to accept $4,900 in full payment thereof. The defendants arranged with plaintiff to furnish that amount, which it did, and the note and mortgage were transferred to plaintiff, and the plaintiff delivered them to defendants. On the same day defendants sold two of said trucks to one Holcomb and received in payment $500 in cash, seven notes for $575 each, and one note for $675. They indorsed these notes, waiving demand, notice, and protest, and delivered them together with the $500 to the plaintiff. The payment of the Credit Corporation note, the sale of the trucks to Holcomb, the receipt of the $500 and the Holcomb notes by defendants and the delivery of said money and notes by them to the plaintiff were contemporaneous transactions.

At the same time defendants gave plaintiff a note for $500, payable five months after date. This note was to pay the plaintiff, in part, for furnishing the money to take up the Credit Corporation note.

*418 The main questions for review are whether the Mills & Son note, the Holcomb notes that fell due October 1, 1931, November 1, 1931, December 1, 1931, and February 1, 1932, and the note which defendants gave plaintiff March 31, 1931, all of which plaintiff now holds, are covered by the Fairbanks mortgage, and whether the last mentioned note is usurious. The chancellor found in favor of the defendants on both questions, and entered a decree accordingly. The case is here on plaintiff’s exceptions and appeal.

The parties treat these notes as standing alike under this mortgage, but they do not. The first one was given by the mortgagors to a third party who never had any interest in this, mortgage, and very likely never heard of it, and that party transferred such note to the plaintiff some months before the latter acquired this mortgage; while the other five notes represent direct obligations of the mortgagors to the plaintiff which arose nearly two and one-half years after it acquired such mortgage.

The only case in this State that appears to give support to the claim that the Mills & Son note is covered by this mortgage is Lamoille County Savings Bank & Tr. Co. v. Belden, 90 Vt. 535, 98 Atl. 1002, 1003. In that case, a mortgage given by a husband and wife to the plaintiff contained the following accruing clause: ‘£ and shall pay said bank all further sums we or either of us now owe it or may become owing it in any way, ’ ’ etc., and it was held that the language ‘ ‘ owing it in any way” covered a note given by the husband to a third party and indorsed by the latter to the plaintiff. It should be noted, however, that in giving effect to the language last quoted the Court took into consideration the £ £ character of the mortgagee, ’ ’ namely, that it was a “bank of discount and deposit,” and also the fact that the note was “discounted by the bank in its usual course of business. ’ ’ That decision, limited in its scope as it is, is-not authority for holding that this note is covered by this mortgage. Nor is it longer authority, in this State, as to the rights of parties under accruing mortgages given to banks. See G-. L. 5363, subd. 1, (c).

Only two other cases are cited by counsel for plaintiff in support of his claim regarding these notes, although he says that he has “carefully combed the digests for supporting *419 authorities.” These are Collins v. Gregg, 109 Iowa, 506, 80 N. W. 562, and Price v. Williams, 179 Ark. 12, 13 S. W. (2d) 822. The former simply holds that the accruing clause in the trust deed in question covered future advances made by the grantee- to the grantor, and the latter holds that the accruing clause there in question covered future advances made by the assignee of the mortgage to the mortgagor. This ease does not support plaintiff’s claim regarding the Mills & Son note, but does tend to support its claim as to the others. In First Nat. Bank of Paterson v. Byard, 26 N. J. Eq. 255, where the facts were similar to those in Lamoille County Savings Bank & Tr. Co. v. Belden, supra, a like conclusion was reached.

Among the cases that tend to support the view that this note is not covered by this mortgage are Lashbrooks v. Hatheway, 52 Mich. 124, 17 N. W. 723, 724; First Nat. Bank of Jackson v. Combs, 208 Ky. 763, 271 S. W. 1077; Benton v. Kent, 61 N. H. 124; Moran v. Gardemeyer, 82 Cal. 96, 23 Pac. 6, and Walker v. Whitmore, 165 Ark. 276, 262 S. W. 678. See, also, 41 C. J., page 468, par. 373. In Lashbrooks v. Hatheway,

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Bluebook (online)
168 A. 547, 105 Vt. 415, 1933 Vt. LEXIS 233, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/strong-hardware-co-v-gonyow-et-ux-vt-1933.