Weatherwax v. Heflin

12 So. 2d 554, 244 Ala. 210, 1943 Ala. LEXIS 161
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedFebruary 11, 1943
Docket8 Div. 196.
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 12 So. 2d 554 (Weatherwax v. Heflin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Weatherwax v. Heflin, 12 So. 2d 554, 244 Ala. 210, 1943 Ala. LEXIS 161 (Ala. 1943).

Opinions

*216 THOMAS, Justice.

The bill was for injunction as to a mortgage foreclosure, for accounting between mortgagor and mortgagees.

The original bill, filed by appellants, October 18, 1940, alleged that on February 12, 1926, appellants executed a mortgage to W. I. Heflin, for the purpose of securing an indebtedness of one thousand ($1,-000) dollars, maturing February 12, 1927, and conveying a lot in the Town of Moulton, Alabama; that the mortgagee died, leaving the appellees as the sole heirs at ’aw and distributees; that subsequent to the maturity of the mortgage indebtedness, the complainant, J. L. Weatherwax, attended to and looked after the affairs of the estate at the request of the appellees, with the agreement that the value of such services were to be applied on the indebtedness secured by the mortgage, and that the services were reasonably worth the amount of the indebtedness secured by the mortgage, and was thereby satisfied.

It is further averred that the appellees were proceeding to foreclose the mortgage. In addition to the general prayer for relief, special relief was sought for an order requiring the record of the mortgage to be marked paid and satisfied, or, in the alternative, that it be ascertained and determined the true amount owed on said mortgage, and to allow complainants a reasonable time within which to pay the same. The bill also prayed for a preliminary writ of injunction.

The court granted the preliminary injunction.

In answer to the bill, the appellees averred that in addition to the mortgage indebtedness admitted and alleged by the appellants, on May 4, 1926, the appellants incurred an additional indebtedness of one hundred twenty-five ($125) dollars, evidenced by promissory note, signed by them in and by which it was stipulated and agreed that said indebtedness was secured by said mortgage, and that on December 9, 1929, an additional indebtedness of three hundred seventy-five ($375) dollars, was incurred evidenced by promissory note, in which it was stipulated and agreed that that indebtedness should also be secured with said mortgage. It was further averred in the answer that there was an agreement with J. L. Weatherwax, a nephew of W. I. Heflin, that he would assist his aunt in the handling of the affairs of her husband’s estate, for which he was to be paid the interest on his indebtedness to the estate, and this was the sole and only agreement for compensation.

The trial court decreed that the complainants’ prayer for relief be denied and disallowed; that the complainants were indebted to the defendant at the date of the decree in the sum of two thousand two hundred and ten ($2,210) dollars; that if said indebtedness was not paid within sixty days from the enrollment of the decree, the lands embraced in the mortgage should be sold for the satisfaction of said indebtedness.

*217 Several questions of law that have application are that: as between themselves the parties to a mortgage may by agreement extend the security of same to cover an additional indebtedness. Abbeville Live Stock Co. v. Walden, 209 Ala. 315, 96 So. 237; Forsyth v. Preer, Illges & Co., 62 Ala. 445:

In McWhorter v. Tyson, 203 Ala. 509, 83 So. 330, it is held: “Under the statute of frauds as to realty and the statute prohibiting parol mortgages of personalty, a parol agreement to impose on the property a charge or lien to secure a different debt or obligation from that originally intended is ineffective.”

A mortgagor seeking to redeem must be prepared to pay not only the obligation originally secured by the mortgage, but a subsequently incurred indebtedness for which an agreement was duly made that the land should be held a security. In 17 A.L.R. p. 14, Rule II, many authorities are collected to the effect that, “The broad general doctrine is announced in many cases that a contract required by the Statute of Frauds to be in writing cannot be modified by subsequent oral agreement.”

In 36 Am.Jur. p. 786, § 187, it is said: “The general rule is that the imposition of conditions not contained in a mortgage, or the payment of a debt not secured thereby, may not be exacted as a condition of redemption from the mortgage. A different rule has been adopted in some cases, however, where the mortgagor is seeking the aid of a court of equity in the enforcement of his equity of redemption, in which case the maxim ‘he who seeks equity must do equity’ is applied in such manner as to require as a condition precedent to relief the payment by the mortgagor of not only the mortgage debt, but all other debts due from the mortgagor to the mortgagee.”

And in the same volume of American Jurisprudence, § 196, p. 790, it is said: “A tender of payment of a mortgage debt must be kept good in order to maintain a suit for redemption from a mortgage, and it is generally regarded as an essential part of a bill to redeem a mortgage that it offer in express term to pay the amount due with costs. Sometimes, it is required that the money be paid into court. The principle underlying these rules is that he who seeks equity must do equity. On the same principle, it has been held that a mortgagor, going into equity to redeem may he required to pay not only the mortgage debt, but all other debts due from him to the mortgagee. [Chamberlain v. Thompson, 10 Conn. 243, 26 Am.Dec. 390; Lee v. Stone, 5 Gill. & J., Md., 1, 23 Am.Dec. 589; Coombs v. Jordan, 3 Bland, Md., 284, 22 Am.Dec. 236. Annotation: 18 Eng. Rul.Cas. 277.] * * (Brackets supplied from text.)

The rules just set out are contrary to the rule of McWhorter v. Tyson, 203 Ala. 509, 83 So. 330, supra. However, the better statement of the rule is found in 36 Am. Jur. p. 722, §§ 67 and 68, which follows:

“Although there is authority to the contrary, the general rule is that a mortgage cannot secure future advances unless it was intended to do at the time of its execution, and that subsequent parol agreements by the parties that it should have that effect are nugatory. It has also been stated as a broad proposition that a general agreement to secure future advances must be confined to such as are in the contemplation of the parties at the time the agreement is made. [Forelines v. Paulk et al., 243 Ala. 516, 10 So.2d 864; Bynon v. Citizens’ Bank of Carbon Hill, 221 Ala. 626, 130 So. 391.]
“A mortgage does not secure obligations which were not contemplated by the parties to be secured thereby. Indeed, it is a general rule that a mortgage cannot, subsequent to its execution, be extended by parol agreement to secure debts or obligations other than those which it was executed to secure. Such an extension, if effective, would be equivalent, to the execution of a new mortgage to secure the additional obligation. It, therefore, falls within the prohibition of the statute of frauds. It is true that oral testimony is admissible to show what obligations were intended to be secured by a mortgage and will be received to establish that the mortgage was in fact given to secure obligations, distinct from those expressed, but this doctrine permits parol testimony only to show the intention of the parties at the time the mortgage was executed and not to establish a subsequent agreement, in effect creating a new mortgage, to extend the mortgage to secure additional obligations. * * [Brackets supplied.]

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Bluebook (online)
12 So. 2d 554, 244 Ala. 210, 1943 Ala. LEXIS 161, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/weatherwax-v-heflin-ala-1943.