The White River Production Credit Assn. v. Griffin

128 S.W.2d 701, 198 Ark. 249, 1939 Ark. LEXIS 227
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedApril 24, 1939
Docket4-5430
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 128 S.W.2d 701 (The White River Production Credit Assn. v. Griffin) 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
The White River Production Credit Assn. v. Griffin, 128 S.W.2d 701, 198 Ark. 249, 1939 Ark. LEXIS 227 (Ark. 1939).

Opinion

McHaney, J.

Appellant brought this action against appellee Griffin, as maker, and the other appellees, as indorsers, to recover the balance due on a promissory note. On April 24, 1937, appellee Griffin executed and delivered to appellant his promissory note for $1,000, due and payable December 1, 1937, with interest from date to maturity at 5 per cent, and thereafter at 8 per cent, per annum, which said note was indorsed by the other appellees, Koettel and Heffington, and further secured by a chattel mortgage on certain personal property and seventy-five acres of rice to be planted. Said note, in addition to a provision waiving presentment for payment, notice of nonpayment, etc., on the part of the maker and indorsers thereof, contained this statement: “This note is secured by a chattel mortgage on property therein more specifically described,” etc. The mortgage contained a provision that it was given “for the purpose of securing the payment of said debt and the note evidencing the same, and all renewals and extensions thereof, and all additional loans and advances which may hereafter be made by the mortgagee, its successors [or] assigns, to the mortgagor, whether made before or after the maturity of the note described herein, and during the life of this mortgage, whether or not evidenced by note or notes, and any and all other present or future liabilities of the mortgagor to the mortgagee. . . .” Another provision in said mortgage is contained in the defeasance clause, providing that if the mortgagor shall pay said debt, £ ‘ together with any and all other sums or advances paid, furnished or advanced hereunder” by it, then said conveyance or mortgage should be void, otherwise to be in full force and effect. Another provision is that if it should assign this mortgage and said note to the Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of St. Louis, Missouri, and “ shall make additional advances to the mortgagor, or shall pay or incur sums or obligations hereunder for the protection or preservation of said security, such additional advances, sums and obligations shall be secured by the lien of this mortgage, although—not- assigned to the Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of St. Louis; provided, however, that if such advances, sums and obligations are not assigned to the Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of St. Louis, then any note or notes or other obligations herein secured held by such Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of St. Louis shall have priority over any other notes or liabilities secured'hereby in so far as concerns participation in the proceeds of any foreclosure sale hereunder, and the priority of said assignee shall extend and operate to and throughout all transactions, proceedings or controversies with respect to the security herein conveyed, and said assignee shall be entitled to payment in full before any of the other claims herein secured shall be paid.

In addition to the $1,000 loaned appellee Griffin, appellant made other advances to him to enable him to harvest, haul, store and market his rice crop of 90 acres instead of 75, for which he executed to it three other notes dated November 1, November 6, and November 23, 1937, aggregating $745, and which appellees Koettel and Heffington refused to indorse because they did not wish to be liable for more than $1,000. Koettel was Griffin’s landlord and he executed and delivered to appellant his waiver of landlord’s lien for rent, which was attached to the mortgage and recites: “ Such waiver to extend to and cover the amount now due under and secured by said mortgage or which may be hereafter secured thereby under.the terms thereof, and I/we hereby waive the right to a marshalling and consent to the collection of said mortgage out of any and all said crops.”

The rice crop was- thereafter harvested and sold. On January 22, 1938, appellee Griffin made a payment to appellant which it applied first to the retirement of the additional loans represented by the three notes executed in November, and the remainder, $108.35, to the original $1,000 note. Thereafter, three other payments were made on said note, the last being on June 24, 1938, which left a balance, exclusive of interest, of $564.99. On August 15-,. 1938, the date of the filing of this suit, there was a balance due thereon, including interest, of $643.31.

Appellee Griffin made no defense to the action. The ■other appellees defended on the ground that the note which they indorsed had been paid. The case was tried before the court, a jury being waived, and it found that appellant was required by law to apply the first proceeds of the mortgaged rice crop and other security to the $1,000 note on which Koettel and Heffington were indorsers before making any application of said proceeds on the three notes, representing advances. Judgment was rendered against Griffin for $643.31 with interest from August 15, 1938, at 8 per cent, per annum, and in favor of Koettel and Heffington.

We think the court erred in discharging Koettel and Heffington. It is undisputed in this record that Griffin instructed appellant’s ag’ent, Mr. Harris, to “take up the additional advances out of the first rice sold.” Griffin did not remember this conversation, but did not deny that it occurred. It is also undisputed that neither Koettel nor Heffington undertook to direct application of payments, although Heffington says that, in a conversation with Harris, he suggested that he thought the proceeds should “go to the first instead of the' last” or that the money ‘ ‘ ought to be applied at the bottom and not at the top. ” The general rule for application of payments is stated in the second headnote to National Surety Co. v. Southern Lumber & Supply Co., 181 Ark. 105, 24 S. W. 2d 964, as follows: ‘ ‘ The right to apply payments exists only between the original parties, and no third person, such as guarantor, surety, indorser or the like, has any authority to insist on an appropriation of the money in his favor where neither the debtor nor the creditor has made such appropriation.”

And the court further stated in this case the rule often announced that the debtor at the time of making a payment has the right to direct the application. If he fails to direct such application, the creditor has the right to make it, “and the third person or surety company has no right to be heard, and no right to direct how the payments shall be applied.” Quotations from 21 R. C. L. 107-8 and 30 Cyc. 1250-51 are given to support the rule that the right to apply payments is strictly one existing between the original parties, and not to persons secondarily liable. In an exhaustive note to Wait v. Homestead Bldg. Assn., 21 A. L. R. (W. Va.) 704, it is said: “It is well settled that a surety or guarantor cannot in the absence of an agreement or of. special equity in his favor, direct or control the application by the principal and the creditor, or either of them, of payments made by the principal from his own funds; in other words, the mere fact that one of the debts in question is covered by the obligation of a guarantor or surety does not defeat the right of the principal debtor in the first instance, or, in case of his failure, the right of the credit- or, to apply the payment to another debt due from the principal.”

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Bluebook (online)
128 S.W.2d 701, 198 Ark. 249, 1939 Ark. LEXIS 227, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/the-white-river-production-credit-assn-v-griffin-ark-1939.