Tallulah Production Credit Ass'n v. Turner

391 So. 2d 885
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 26, 1981
Docket14294, 14295
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 391 So. 2d 885 (Tallulah Production Credit Ass'n v. Turner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tallulah Production Credit Ass'n v. Turner, 391 So. 2d 885 (La. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

391 So.2d 885 (1980)

TALLULAH PRODUCTION CREDIT ASSOCIATION, Appellant,
v.
J. C. TURNER, Appellee.
Ruth P. TURNER, Appellee,
v.
Jimmie C. TURNER et ux., Appellee.

Nos. 14294, 14295.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

December 2, 1980.
Writ Refused January 26, 1981.

*886 Voelker, Ragland, Brackin & Crigler by William B. Ragland, Jr., Lake Providence, for plaintiff-appellant, Tallulah Production Credit Association.

Hamilton, Carroll & Miller by Orlando N. Hamilton, Jr., Oak Grove, for Ruth P. Turner.

Jimmie C. Turner, in pro. per.

Before PRICE, HALL, MARVIN, JASPER E. JONES and FRED W. JONES, Jr., JJ.

MARVIN, Judge.

The dispute in these consolidated cases is between the pledgee of a collateral mortgage note and a subordinated secured creditor of a common debtor as to who outranks whom as to the proceeds from the sale of the property securing both creditors.

The trial court held that the pledgee does not outrank the subordinated creditor as to loans made to the pledgor after the pledge and subordination where the circumstances indicate that the subordinated creditor was not aware that she was subordinating other than to one specific indebtedness and where promissory notes evidencing these later loans were not "clearly identified" with the pledge. The pledgee appeals. We reverse.

Resolution of the issues requires our consideration of the collateral mortgage, the subordination, the pledge agreement, and CC Art. 3158, in the light of the particular circumstances of this case.

The subordinated secured creditor (Mrs. Turner) is the mother of the common debtor (Jimmie C. Turner). She sold the property in question to her son on credit in 1973. About one month later Jimmie sought to borrow money from Tallulah Production Credit Association (PCA). On November 13, 1973, Jimmie executed the collateral mortgage and the separate pledge agreement and his mother executed the act of subordination.

The collateral mortgage is titled in large bold-face print "Collateral Mortgage", and its pertinent provisions read that the property shall remain mortgaged "... until the full payment of any debt or obligation for which the note may be pledged as collateral security."

The pertinent provisions of the pledge agreement read:

"The consideration for the pledge is the particular loan ... currently made to... Pledgor ... and any further advances... and any further or other debts ... of Pledgor to Pledgee until the pledge is cancelled as hereafter provided.
"The pledge shall ... secure the payment of:
"(1) The particular loan ... $12,000 ...

*887 "(2) Any and all further or other loans or advances to or further or other debts, obligations, or liabilities of Pledgor to Pledgee, now existing or hereafter arising, up to a total of, excluding and not including the particular loan to or debt of Pledgor herein described, $12,000.

"* * * It is the purpose of this pledge to fully secure Pledgee in every way and in particular with all the rights ... and benefits provided and authorized by Article 3158 ...

"This pledge shall remain in ... effect until ... the pledged instrument ... shall have been legally and physically returned to the Pledgor. * * *
"This pledge shall in no way affect and shall in no way be affected by any other security for the payment of any amounts here secured."

The "Act of Subordination" in conventional typewritten form, reads to the effect that Mrs. Turner subordinates her "mortgage" to the "Mortgage of Tallulah Production Credit Association" and that it is her intent that "the said mortgage in favor of Tallulah Production Credit Association shall be a first mortgage ... and that [her] mortgage ... shall be ... a second mortgage... and [that] in the event of a sale of the said mortgaged property, by foreclosure... the said note [of PCA] shall be paid by preference and priority ... of the notes held by [Mrs. Turner] ..."

About six months after these instruments were executed and recorded, Jimmie Turner paid the particular loan of $12,000. PCA retained the collateral mortgage note. In 1975 Jimmie Turner executed two notes to PCA for money loaned him at that time. Each of these notes were noted as being secured by a crop pledge and a chattel mortgage. No mention was made on these notes of the 1973 collateral pledge agreement or of the 1973 collateral mortgage note.

In 1979 PCA sued to foreclose on its $12,000 collateral mortgage note and asserted that the indebtednesses which arose in 1975 were secured by the collateral mortgage note as well as by the 1975 crop pledge and chattel mortgage. Mrs. Turner then sued for foreclosure by executory process for the balance due on her vendor's lien. PCA intervened in her action. Eventually the property was sold by the Sheriff and the distribution of the balance of the proceeds ($26,335) awaits final disposition of the competing claims of Mrs. Turner and PCA.

THE ACT OF SUBORDINATION

Mrs. Turner effectively subordinated her security rights (vendor's lien, mortgage) to the mortgage of PCA. She declared in the subordination that her note arising out of the "Act of Credit Sale" to her son would be subordinate to, and would be a "second mortgage" to PCA's "first mortgage", and that in the event of a foreclosure, PCA's mortgage note would be preferred and paid before her mortgage note. Terms used in an alleged waiver of legal rights must be construed in the light of the legal significance intended by the parties. See Sliman v. McBee, 311 So.2d 248, 253 (La.1975). For us to hold that Mrs. Turner waived only her "mortgage" and not her vendor's lien, as she contends, would abort the stated intent of the act of subordination.

The act of subordination relates only to the ranking of the security rights held by Mrs. Turner and by PCA and does not otherwise purport to define or limit, or limit the effect of the security. The effect of the security instrument must be determined by the instrument itself and Mrs. Turner cannot complain that she was not aware that she was subordinating to a collateral mortgage. PCA made no representations to Mrs. Turner.

THE COLLATERAL MORTGAGE

Mortgage is a generic term which encompasses several species. We have conventional, legal, and judicial mortgages. Three types of conventional mortgages are recognized in Louisiana: the ordinary mortgage, the mortgage to secure future advances, and the collateral mortgage. The collateral mortgage is the product of judicial recognition that one can pledge a note secured by a *888 mortgage and use this pledge to secure yet another debt. First Guaranty Bank v. Alford, 366 So.2d 1299, 1303 (La.1978). There, the Supreme Court further explained:

"A collateral mortgage note may be pledged to secure future obligations. In that event full payment of a given obligation [particular obligation] will not extinguish the collateral mortgage note and accompanying mortgage. (And in such cases the collateral mortgage will have a ranking from the initial pledge. La.Civil Code, Art. 3158.)"

Bracketed material and emphasis supplied.

This collateral mortgage expressly provides that the mortgage note may be pledged to secure other debts and obligations and that the property shall remain mortgaged until the other debts secured by the pledged note have been fully paid.

THE COLLATERAL PLEDGE AGREEMENT

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