Willis v. Jelineck

6 N.W. 373, 27 Minn. 18, 1880 Minn. LEXIS 4
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedJuly 20, 1880
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 6 N.W. 373 (Willis v. Jelineck) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Willis v. Jelineck, 6 N.W. 373, 27 Minn. 18, 1880 Minn. LEXIS 4 (Mich. 1880).

Opinion

Cornell, J.

Action to recover possession of certain real estate, both parties claiming title under a sale upon a foreclosure by advertisement of a mortgage given in April, 1867, by one Mary A. Haus and her husband. The sale was made by the sheriff, October 17, 1876, to one Richmond, who became the purchaser, and received the usual certificate of sale and purchase. It is admitted by the pleadings that no redemption was had within the twelve months next after the sale, by any of the parties who were entitled to redeem under the provisions of Gen. St. 1866, c. 81, § 13. Plaintiff’s claim is that no redemption whatever has ever been made under either section 13 or 16 of said chapter, though the time allowed therefor has expired, whereby the rights acquired by the purchaser at said sale, and evidenced by the certificate, have ripened into an absolute title, which is now held by plaintiff. On the part of the defence, the claim is that the property was duly redeemed from such sale, within the five days allowed by law, under said section 16, by one Fink, the defendant’s lessor, as a senior creditor, who had a lien upon an undivided estate or interest in the premises, by yirtue of a judgment rendered and docketed April 1, 1875, against one Yitt, who had acquired a title to such undivided interest, derived from the mortgagor subsequent to the mortgage. Said judgment was rendered in the district court of Ramsey county, in favor of Elias S. Higgins and Nathaniel D. Higgins, partners as E. S. Higgins & Co., plaintiffs in the action, and was assigned, as defendant alleges, by them to one Sanborn, and by the latter to said Fink, who claims to have been the owner thereof at the time of his alleged redemption.

The cause was tried by the court without a jury, and the issues presented for trial, it will be seen, involved the right of Fink to redeem under the statute, (Gen. St. c. 81, § 16,) [20]*20and also the fact of his alleged redemption and its validity. In respect to the first point, the contention is that such right, if it ever existed, had been cut off by the repealing act of March 3, 1877, (Laws 1877, c. 121,) which, it is claimed, had the effect of abrogating entirely the provisions of section ■16 aforesaid, and all Fink’s rights thereunder. The answer to this position is that, prior to the passage of this repealing enactment, the lien of the judgment which Fink had acquired and held had already attached to the property; and if it was sufficient to entitle him to redeem as a senior judgment creditor, it secured to him the right, in case no redemption was had under section 13 by any of the parties therein designated, within the time therein prescribed, to redeem upon complying with the conditions of sections 14 and 16 of said chapter of the General Statutes, and thereby to acquire, from the holder of the certificate of purchase, all th,e rights which he had obtained from the purchase, and then held under such certificate of purchase, by paying therefor the amount of the purchase-money, and interest. This was a vested, valuable property right, of which Fink could not be divested or deprived without his consent, except by due process of law, and hence it was not and could not be affected by the repealing act of March 3, 1877.

The suggestion that, the lien of the judgment upon which Fink’s redemption was founded being only upon an undivided interest in the property, it therefore gave no right of redemption, is met by the statute, which enacts in express terms that “if no such redemptions made,” (i. «., none under section 13,) “the senior creditor having a lien, legal or equitable, on the real estate, or some part thereof, subsequent to the mortgage, may redeem,” etc. An undivided interest in real estate is “some part” of it, within the meaning of this statute, liberally construed, as it must be under the decisions of this court. Williams v. Lash, 8 Minn. 441 (496;) Tinkcom v. Lewis, 21 Minn. 132.

Upon the trial, defendant was permitted, against plaintiff’s [21]*21objection, to prove by parol that the mortgagor, Mary A. Haus, died intestate in 1871, leaving her surviving, her husband and five children, her sole heirs at law; that her estate had never been administered on, and that she left no debts outstanding against her estate; and, further, that four of her said children, together with her said husband, joined in executing and delivering to said Yitt, the judgment debtor named in the judgment under which defendant claimed the right to redeem, on the 6th day of .May, 1872, a good and sufficient deed of conveyance to pass to him, and his heirs and assigns, all the interest and estate in said mortgaged property which had become vested in them by reason of the death of the said mortgagor. This was competent evidence for the purpose of showing that Yitt had an estate or interest in the mortgaged property, which became subject to the lien of the judgment against him by virtue of which Fink claimed the right to redeem the premises from the sale under the mortgage. Under the law regulating the descent of real property, the equity of redemption which remained in the mortgagor at the time of her death immediately passed to her husband and children, subject only to the payment of her debts, if any; and it was competent for the latter to convey whatever estate or interest they thus acquired, without waiting for administration upon her estate. The ruling of the court below upon the admission of this evidence was not error.

■The objection that the judgment against Yitt was satisfied prior to the redemption, by reason of a levy, on execution upon sufficient personal property to satisfy the same, is fully met by the finding of the court that there was actually due and unpaid thereon the sum of $694.78; and the evidence contained in the record before us sustains the finding, without reference to the presumption in its favor which arises from the fact that the settled case does not purport to disclose all the evidence that was given on the trial. The evidence included in the ease justifies the conclusion that the personal property so levied on had already been transferred by the judgment debtor [22]*22to his assignee, Kiefer, for the benefit' of bis creditors, and that the assignee had the possession of the property at the time the levy was made. It further shows a subsequent release of the levy, and a return of the property to the assignee, under an arrangement to which Vitt was a party, by virtue of which the property was afterwards disposed of for his benefit, and that it was a part of this arrangement that the judgment was to be assigned to Fink,' to hold as a lien upon the real property of tbe debtor, to indemnify him and his associates against liabilities they had incurred for him under said arrangement. Upon no principle or authority can a levy and release under such circumstances be held to operate as a payment. The presumption of payment which arises from tbe fact of a levy upon sufficient property of the judgment debtor to pay the debt, is rebutted by the facts themselves. First Nat. Bank v. Rogers, 15 Minn. 381. Upon these facts, Vitt cannot be heard to repudiate tbe validity oí the arrangement, because he has participated in its benefits; and the plaintiff in this case cannot assail it, for he is claiming solely under Eichmond, the purchaser at the mortgage foreclosure sale, and his legal rights, therefore, antedate and are wholly unaffected by the transaction.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
6 N.W. 373, 27 Minn. 18, 1880 Minn. LEXIS 4, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/willis-v-jelineck-minn-1880.