Vincent v. Moore

17 N.W. 81, 51 Mich. 618, 1883 Mich. LEXIS 649

• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Decided: October 24, 1883
• Status: Published

Opinion

Cooley, J.

The bill in this case appears to be filed to-enforce the payment of a sum of money which complainants paid to redeem from a tax sale certain lands belonging to defendant, and upon which complainants, at the time of redemption, held a mortgage. The redemption, it is assumed, was made for the protection of the mortgage ; but complainants went on after wards'and foreclosed the mortgage under the power of sale, taking no notice of what they had paid for taxes and making no claim for the amount. The land was sold in the foreclosure proceedings, and bid in for the amount of the mortgage debt, and defendant redeemed from that sale. This suit was then instituted. We think there is no foundation for it. What complainants were compelled to pay for the protection of their mortgage did not constitute a separate and independent lien on the land; it could become a hen only in connection with and because of the mortgage, and could not exist independent of it. When therefore complainants took proceedings which resulted in a satisfaction of the mortgage, any lien which may have existed before for the taxes paid was necessarily discharged, whether the amount paid was claimed in those proceedings or not. All that complainants could claim by virtue of the mortgage they were bound to claim in those proceedings, and they could not at pleasure split up their demand and make the parts the subjects of separate suits-.

The decree must be affirmed with costs.

The other Justices concurred.