Utah State Building & Loan Ass'n v. Perkins

173 P. 950, 53 Utah 474, 1918 Utah LEXIS 26
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedJune 18, 1918
DocketNo. 2178
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 173 P. 950 (Utah State Building & Loan Ass'n v. Perkins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Utah State Building & Loan Ass'n v. Perkins, 173 P. 950, 53 Utah 474, 1918 Utah LEXIS 26 (Utah 1918).

Opinion

GIDEON, J.

Plaintiff corporation was organized.as a building and loan association under the laws of Utah in the year 1909. De[477]*477fendant D. C. Perkins was one of the original incorporators, and became treasurer of the company upon its organization, and continued as such until the year 1915. On or about May 5, 1913, the defendant Lion Bonding & Surety Company became • surety to plaintiff for Perkins as such treasurer. It was provided in the bond that said surety bound itself to pay plaintiff any amount not exceeding $5,000 for any loss sustained by plaintiff, either in money, or personal property, “by any act or acts of fraud, dishonesty, forgery, theft, embezzlement, wrongful abstraction or misappropriation on the part of said” Perkins. In the year 1915 suit was instituted against Perkins and the surety company to recover from Perkins approximately $8,000 alleged to have been wrongfully taken and appropriated by him from moneys belonging to plaintiff, and for judgment against the surety company for the amount of its liability. Issue was joined and trial had before the court. Judgment was entered against Perkins for the sum of $5,200.75, together with $1,010 interest, and against the surety company in the sum of $2,973.85 principal, and $697.23 interest. After the shortage of defendant Perkins, was discovered, and when the amount thereof was uncertain, Perkins and wife executed two blank deeds, and acknowledged the same before a notary public, conveying to the plaintiff, as claimed by it, the interest or equities of Perkins and wife in and to certain real estate located in Salt Lake City as security for any indebtedness or money that might be found owing by Perkins to plaintiff. The court held those deeds to be mortgages and directed that the property described therein be sold, and that the amount received be first applied.on the expenses of sale, on the payment of certain taxes on the premises plaintiff had paid, on interest on a pre-existing mortgage against the same premises, and that the balance be credited upon the judgment entered against Perkins. Both defendants appeal from the judgment.

Before considering the merits of the questions presented on the appeal it becomes necessary to dispose of two preliminary questions raised by appellants. At the trial counsel for Perkins stated to the court:

“At the time the case was set for-trial the defendant ten[478]*478dered the jury fee and demanded a jury, which was denied by the presiding judge. At this time we again tender the statutory jury fee, and we demand a. jury for the trial of the case, it being our contention that this is an action for a money judgment, and that- it is in law rather than in equity; that it merely is collaterally in equity through the effort of the plaintiff to attempt in the one cause of action to collect on a so-called money account to foreclose a mortgage.”

No demand for a jury was made on the part of the other defendant at that or any other time.

1,2 The record does not contain the proceedings had before the presiding judge at the time the case was set for trial. Whether any exceptions were taken to the refusal of the court to have the issues tried by a jury at .that time does not appear. Comp. Laws 1907, section 3129, pi’ovides that a party who desires a jury for the trial of a cause, or any of the issues thereof, must demand it, either by written notice to the clerk prior to the time of setting such action for trial, or within such reasonable time thereafter as the court may direct, or orally in open court at the time of such setting, and deposit the necessary fee. Otherwise he will be held to have waived trial by jury. It will therefore be seen that the demand for a jury at the time the. case was called for trial came too late. Unless there is some record showing a demand at the time specified in the statute, a refusal, and an exception taken to the ruling of the court, the matter is not before this court for review, and the right or privilege of trial by jury will be held to have been waived.

“If, however, the demand and the deposit had not been made in accordance with the statute, the jury would have been waived.” Nichols v. Cherry, 22 Utah, 5, 60 Pac. 1103. “No doubt, if the demand and payment are not made as required by the statute, the party has waived his right to require the court to call a jury. * * *” Davis v. D. & R. G. R. Co., 45 Utah, 13, 142 Pac. 709.

3 Furthermore, plaintiff alleged the execution of certain deeds by Perkins and his wife, and that such deeds were given as security, and that, while in the form of deeds, they were in fact mortgages, and should be so con[479]*479sidered by the court. Perkins in his counterclaim alleged that the purported deeds were not in fact conveyances of any kind; that he and his wife signed their names to two blank forms of deed, and had the same acknowledged; that they were retained in his possession by being placed in a private box; that at the time said blank forms of deed were executed the descriptions of the real property were not included therein; that no grantee was named in the deeds; that no consideration for either deed was agreed upon or written into the deed, and that in fact there was no writing on the papers except the signatures of himself and wife; that thereafter the officers of the plaintiff company obtained possession of such blank deeds without his consent, and without being authorized by him such officers filled in the descriptions, the name of the grantee, and the consideration, and caused the same to be placed of record. In his counterclaim Perkins asked an affirmative judgment of the court declaring the deeds to be null and void and that they be canceled. It will therefore' be seen that both by the complaint and counterclaim equitable issues were involved. The jury’s findings on such issues would have been at most, only advisory to the court. Escamilla v. Pingree, 44 Utah, 421, 141 Pac. 103, L. R. A. 1915B, 475; Shafer v. Killpack, 53 Utah, 468, 173 Pac. 948, decided this term.

No error was committed by the trial court denying a trial by jury.

4 It is next contended that the court erred in permitting plaintiff to introduce testimony in support of its complaint for the reason that a demand, under Comp. Laws 1907, section 2988, had been made by the defendants upon the plaintiff to furnish a bill of particulars, and no bill of particulars had been furnished. That section of our statute reads:

“It is not necessary for a party to set forth in a pleading the items of an account therein alleged, but he must deliver to the adverse party, within ten days after a demand thereof, in writing, a copy of the account, or be precluded from giving evidence thereof. The court, or a judge thereof, may order a [480]*480further account when the one delivered is too general or is defective in any particular.”

The section is not applicable to the cause of action stated in the complaint. It is plainly the object of the statute to render it unnecessary for plaintiffs, in suing upon an account, to set out at length the different items going to make up that account. The right, however, is given by that section to a defendant, upon proper notice, to require the plaintiff to furnish the items constituting such account, or statement of account, which, in practice, is designated a “bill of particulars. ” In actions of that nature the account or items making up the account is the foundation of the action.

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Bluebook (online)
173 P. 950, 53 Utah 474, 1918 Utah LEXIS 26, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/utah-state-building-loan-assn-v-perkins-utah-1918.