Taylor v. Oliver

208 S.W. 595, 137 Ark. 515, 1919 Ark. LEXIS 442
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJanuary 27, 1919
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 208 S.W. 595 (Taylor v. Oliver) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Taylor v. Oliver, 208 S.W. 595, 137 Ark. 515, 1919 Ark. LEXIS 442 (Ark. 1919).

Opinion

SMITH, J.

This suit was brought by appellants to foreclose a deed of trust executed by appellee Oliver to J. M. Rose as trustee for appellant, and to foreclose a vendor’s lien which had been reserved to secure the payment of certain notes which appellant claimed to hold as collateral security for the debt secured by the deed of trust. Certain payments on the debt thus secured had been made to Rose who died without having accounted to Mrs. Taylor for these payments, and the right to these credits is the point involved.

The testimony in the case may be summarized as follows: Oliver desired to buy a tract of land in Perry County but to buy this piece of land he was compelled to buy a tract of 320 acres of which the land desired was a portion. Oliver applied to Rose for a loan of two thousand dollars, and this loan was made and evidenced by five principal notes and five interest notes, all payable to the order of Mrs. Taylor, one principal and one interest note falling due each year. Oliver sold to one Ray eighty acres of the land and took in payment therefor six notes, each for $200,these being the notes which Mrs. Taylor says were given as collateral. Oliver’s notes to Mrs. Taylor and Ray’s notes to Oliver were all dated November 1,1910, but Oliver says Ray’s notes were erroneously dated. Certain payments of principal and interest were acknowledged in the complaint and there was a prayer for foreclosure for the balance alleged to be due.

The answer alleged a number of payments for which credit was not given, and alleged that a certain eighty acres of the land had been sold to one S. D. Campbell for $600 under an agreement with Rose that the purchase money notes should be collected and applied to the payment of the original debt, and that, default having been made by Campbell in the payment of this purchase money, a suit had been brought by Rose for Mrs. Taylor and payment enforced by this suit, the amount of which payment was claimed as a credit. The court found the facts as asserted by appellee and allowed the credits claimed and gave judgment for the balance found due, and this appeal has been duly prosecuted.

Mrs. Taylor testified that Rose was not her agent but was the agent of Oliver, and, as such, applied to her for a loan which she subsequently made. That all the notes, both- for the principal and interest, were delivered to her, together with the deed of trust, and that she thereafter continuously retained possession of them until certain of them were.paid and the notes which were paid were delivered to Mr. Rose for Oliver. But it was discovered that she was mistaken in that she had not surrendered any of the notes. She says the notes of Ray to Oliver were also given her, but they were delivered as collateral. She denied any knowledge of the Campbell transaction, or any authority by Rose to bring suit in her name, as well as any knowledge that he had done so. Rose never at any time made any charge against her for services in connection with this suit against Campbell or the negotiation of the loan, and Mrs. Taylor always regarded him as the agent of Oliver.

Oliver testified that he applied to Rose for a loan and explained the purpose for which it was desired and his plan in regard to the resale of portions of the land, and that he took notes from each of the parties to whom he sold land and placed all the notes in one package and sent them to Rose as agreed. He had no title to the land at the time he made the application for a loan. Rose inspected the land and examined the title and made the loan, as witness supposed, for Mrs. Taylor, although he practically admits that he paid Rose a commission for negotiating a loan. Campbell defaulted in his payments, and he conferred with Rose in regard to a suit to be brought to enforce payment, and during this conference Mrs. Taylor came to Rose’s office and, being introduced to Oliver, she stated that Rose had the matter in charge and whatever he did was satisfactory to her. That during the same conference Rose went to his safe and looked up the mortgage and got the description of the land so that he could bring the suit to foreclose, and that Rose had the Campbell notes at the time in the safe. The suit against Campbell was adjusted and Rose executed a power of attorney to the circuit clerk to satisfy the Campbell mortgage, and this was done. A witness named Carden corroborated Oliver as to the conversation had between Oliver and Mrs. Taylor, which was said to have occurred about July, 1913. Mrs. Taylor denied that such a conversation occurred, and her own testimony, as well as that of one Bodman, the secretary of the Union Trust Company, of Little Rock, makes it reasonably certain that Oliver and Carden were at least mistaken as to the time of the alleged conversation, as Mrs. Taylor left Arkansas for Kentucky the last of May or the first of June and remained out of the State continuously until about September 15. And it was also shown that a brother-in-law of Mrs. Taylor in Kentucky, one Judge Winn, had, in his office in Kentucky, the mortgage at the time Oliver, said Rose had it in his office. Mrs. Taylor admitted that since 1910 Rose had made three loans for her, but denied that the loan in question was one of them.

Oliver, recalled, testified that although the notes to Mrs. Taylor were dated November 1, the transaction was closed on November 4, this being the date which he, himself, secured his deed from his vendor,- and that he sold the land to Campbell on November 12, and another eighty to one Smith on November 16, following the execution of the deed of trust, and that notes evidencing these transactions were sent to Rose on November 18.

It was show that upon the death of Rose, Mrs. Taylor filed a claim against his estate for the sum of $3,149. This claim was filed on May 6 after the death of Rose on October 22 prior thereto.

We think, under the facts stated, that the court should not have allowed Oliver credit for the payments made to Rose which did not reach Mrs. Taylor. In the case of Bagnell v. Walker, 65 Ark. 325, this court said (to quote the syllabus): To a bill to foreclose a mortgage it is no defense that the mortgagor delivered to his agent the amount- of the mortgage debt, with interest, to be transmitted to the mortgagee, if such agent failed to transmit the money to the mortgagee.

Appellee says, however, that Rose was in fact Mrs. Taylor’s agent with full authority to act for her and to receive and receipt for the payments which were made, and that if this actual authority did not exist it was at. least within the apparent scope of Rose’s authority to make such collections. A statement of the law applicable to the facts in this case, as we understand them, is found in 2 C. J., p. 447, where it is said:

“Section 45 (2) Agent of Borrower. If a person desiring a'loan makes known that desire to one who applies to a money lender and consummates the loan, the intermediary prima facie is the agent of the borrower, not of the lender, and justifies the lender in paying him the amount of the loan. So if the borrower in a written application or otherwise expressly makes the intermediary his agent, if he pays the agent’s commission for negotiating the loan, or if he employs the intermediary to examine the title to the property offered as security, or to discharge prior encumbrances thereon, these facts, taken collectively or in various lesser combinations, are generally held to justify an inference that the intermediary is the agent of the borrower. So also if the lender has given the.

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Bluebook (online)
208 S.W. 595, 137 Ark. 515, 1919 Ark. LEXIS 442, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/taylor-v-oliver-ark-1919.