Federal Land Bank v. Fulcher
Federal Land Bank v. Fulcher
Opinion of the Court
The Federal Land Bank of Columbia, South Carolina, sued W. M. Fulcher as principal and W. M. Fulcher Jr. and E. D. Fulcher as sureties upon a note payable to the plaintiff in the sum of $675 with interest at 8% per annum and the cost of collection, including 10% attorney’s fees, executed May 31, 1930, maturing October 1, 1930. The defendants admitted the execution of the note and denied liability thereon except in the sum of $80.16. 'The defendants in their plea alleged that the note was executed by the principal and the sureties thereon to the plaintiff as security for one of a series of semiannual payments due by the defendant W. M. Fulcher to the plaintiff on a loan in the sum of $20,000, secured by a deed executed by the defendant W. M. Fulcher to the plaintiff, that the installment payment for which the note sued on was given as security was in the sum of $675, represented by two notes for $350 and $325 each, and fell due April 1, 1930, and the amount of this installment included the interest due on the loan to date and an amount to be applied to a reduction of
Counsel for the plaintiff contend that the rights of the parties are determinable by the law of South Carolina, and that, according to the law of that State, as well as the law of Georgia, where a payment is made by a debtor to a creditor having several demands against the debtor and no application of the fund is made, either by the debtor or the creditor, and it devolves upon a court to make an application of the fund, whether the pajonent is made voluntarily or involuntarily, as by a foreclosure proceeding, the court will, where one of the demands is better secured than the others, apply the rule announced by Chief Justice Marshall in Field v. Holland, 10 U. S. (6 Cranch) 8 (3 L. ed. 136), where a payment was voluntarily made, that “It being equitable that the whole debt should be paid, it can not be inequitable to extinguish first those debts for which the security is most precarious.” Counsel for the defendants contend that the rights of the parties are determinable by the law of Georgia, and that under the law of this State, where funds of a debtor are involuntarily paid, as by a foreclosure proceeding, to a creditor having several demands against the debtor, the funds are pro rated to all the demands of equal dignity notwithstanding some of them have better security; and they rely principally on the case of Citizens & Southern Bank v. Armstrong, 22 Ga. App. 138 (95 S. E. 729), as authority for this proposition.
Under the view which we take of the ease it is immaterial whether the rights of the parties are determinable by the law of South Caro
Let us see what are the equities of the parties, and therefore determine what is an equitable apportionment of the fund derived from the sale of the land. The defendant W. M. Eulcher, the principal on the note sued on, before he executed the note was in arrears in the payment of the installment, of $675 due April 1, 1930, upon the loan which he had obtained from the Federal Land Bank, and the Federal Land Bank then and there had the right under the contract to declare the entire loan due and to foreclose. It was therefore to the mutual interest and advantage of both the debtor and the creditor to execute to the creditor the note sued on, with the additional security consisting in the indorsements on the note. The debtor obtained the indulgence and the forbearance of the
In Smythe v. New England Loan Co., 12 Wash. 424 (41 Pac. 184), it was held that “One liable as guarantor for the prompt payment of, interest on a mortgage bond can not, in an action upon the guaranty, after a foreclosure sale which failed to realize the full amount of principal and interest due, set up the defense that the moneys realized must be applied first, in the absence of express direction, to the interest due.” In Union Trust Co. v. Detroit Motor Co., 117 Mich. 631 (76 N. W. 112), it was held that “Persons who have guaranteed the payment of the principal and interest of bonds ‘at the time specified in the bonds’ are not released from liability, either as to matured interest or as to the principal sum when due, by an election of the representative of the bondholders, under a provision in the mortgage securing the bonds, to declare the principal immediately due for default in interest; such election being ineffectual as to the guarantors, and in no way varying their contract.” In Monson v. Meyer, 190 Ill. 105 (60 N. E. 63), it was held that “If a defendant in foreclosure appeals and gives a bond for the payment, in case of affirmance, of such interest as might accrue and remain otherwise unpaid upon the decree from the date thereof, it is proper, upon affirmance, to apply the proceeds of the sale to satisfy fees, costs and principal before satisfying the interest on the decree, since the deficiency, if any, will thereby embrace the interest which is secured by the appeal bond.” In 42 C. J. 314, the rule is laid down that “equity is willing to give the
It seems, if the creditor, as in this case, has taken extra and additional security for a portion of his debt where the whole debt was already secured by a security deed to land, that upon his failure to realize the full amount of the debt out of the proceeds from the sale of the land upon a foreclosure, he has the right to resort to the additional security for the deficiency. The plaintiff, therefore, since the proceeds from the sale of the land were insufficient, in an amount greater than the note sued on, to pay the entire debt, is 'entitled to recover the full amount of the note sued on, given as security for a portion of the debt additional to the security represented by the deed to the land.
While it may seem a hardship to the defendant debtor that, after his land has been taken from him for the debt, he should be compelled to make an additional payment upon the debt, this court has to be governed by the law, and must hold the defendant to his contract upon the insistence of the plaintiff, and give to the plaintiff that to which he is legally entitled under the contract. The plaintiff is entitled to recover the full amount sued for, and the verdict and judgment in his favor in a less amount was contrary to law and without evidence to support it, and it must, at the instance of the plaintiff, be set aside. The judgment is reversed because the court erred in not finding for the plaintiff the full amount of the note sued on.
Judgment reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting. Under the law of this State, as well as the general law, I can not agree with the majority of the court in holding that the trial court erred in applying the funds realized by the plaintiff bank from an exercise of the power of sale contained in the security deed, by crediting the note sued on in this case with the pro-rata share of such funds as should be credited on the two installment notes for which this note was given as -collateral security for this note.
When these installment notes were not paid on October 1, 1930, and the land bank elected to exercise its power of sale in the security deed and foreclosed upon and sold the 1058 acres of land which secured the entire indebtedness of W. M. Fulcher, the defendants were then entitled to have the proceeds derived from the sale of the land applied ratably on all the notes secured by this land. We must bear in mind that the defendant sureties were mere accommodation indorsers on the note sued on, that the note was, in effect, at all times secured by the land embraced in said security deed, executed by the principal debtor to the land bank, and that these sureties knew at the time of their indorsement that the original notes .and particular installments due, which were represented in the note they indorsed, were all secured by land conveyed to the bank.
Every right the law affords sureties will be strictly enforced. Their liability is stricti juris and creditors must be astute not to infringe them. McCarter v. Turner, 49 Ga. 309; McMillan v. Heard National Bank, 19 Ga. App. 148 (91 S. E. 235); Maryland Casualty Co. v. McAlpin, 31 Ga. App. 303 (120 S. E. 644).
In Blount v. Fisher, 31 Ga. App. 687 (121 S. E. 707), this court
Many courts have adopted the pro-rata rule of appropriation equally and ratably among all the debts secured by the instrument. The weight of authority is to the effect that the several debts or claims equally secured by the same mortgage are entitled to share ratably in the proceeds of its foreclosure. 42 C. J. 310, § 2012; 19 R. C. L. 656 et seq. As between an indorser and the mortgagee, all the notes being secured by the same mortgage, there is no priority, and the fund derived from a sale on foreclosure should be applied pro rata, where it is not sufficient to pay all. Bridenbecker v. Lewell, 32 Barb. (N Y.) 9. To the same effect see McDermott v. Bank of Tennessee, 9 Humph. (Tenn.) 123. It was held in Fielder v. Varner, 45 Ala. 429, that since all the notes secured by a single mortgage, given to and remaining in the hands of the mortgagee, share equally in the proceeds of the sale of the mortgaged property, without regard to their date of maturity, the accommodation indorser on any one of such notes is, by the sale, released from his liability thereon to the amount to which that particular note is entitled to share in the proceeds. This case was approved and followed in Bostick v. Jacobs, 133 Ala. 344 (32 So. 136, 91 Am. St. R. 36). As between debts for which a surety is bound and those for which he is not, of payments that are not voluntary, but represent the proceeds of legal or judicial proceedings, such proceeds are to be appropriated ratably to all demands to which the proceeds are applicable, and can not be applied exclusively to demands not covered by the surety’s obligation. Willis v. Caldwell, 10 B. Mon. (Ky.) 199; Olds Wagon Works v. Bank of Louisville, 10 Ky. L. 235; Blackstone Bank v. Hill, 10 Pick. (Mass.) 129. In Orleans County Nat. Bank v. Moore, 112 N. Y. 543 (20 N. E. 357, 3 L. R. A. 302, 8 Am. St. R. 775), it was held that the proceeds of a mortgage securing notes with different sureties are to be applied pro rata, and that the mortgagee can not control their application. In that case the court said that to hold otherwise would leave out of view entirely all rights or equities of
The case of Horne v. Planters Bank, 32 Ga. 1, is not authority to support the majority holding in this case. In that case the ruling was that “When there are several items of indebtedness, the debtor has the right to make the application of payment; and failing to do so, the right devolves upon the creditor to appropriate the payments.” That was the law then and is the law today, being in substance the first part of section 4316 of the Civil Code of 1910. I do not take issue with the quotation from the Supreme Court of the United States, given in 32 Ga., that “When a debtor fails to avail himself of the power which he possesses, in consequence of which that power devolves upon the creditor, it does not appear unreasonable to suppose that he is content with the manner in which the creditor will exercise it. It being equitable that the whole debt should be paid, it can not be inequitable to extinguish first those debts for which the security is most precarious.” This is sound law, but applies only in cases of voluntary payments. However, in the instant case, and in the authorities above referred to in this dissent, the payments were not voluntary ones, but involuntary payments, and as to them, as we have seen, the above rule laid down
For the above reasons, I can not agree with the majority ruling, and must dissent therefrom.
Reference
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- FEDERAL LAND BANK OF COLUMBIA v. FULCHER
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