Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

217 Ala. 166

115 So 103

Fendley v. Smith

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 12, 1928

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1928-01-12

Relies on Hodge v. Joy · Whiteman v. Taber · Ware v. Hamilton Brown Shoe Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1928-01-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently August 1971

12 state decisions

60192819301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

THOMAS, J.

¶1 The bill is by a second mortgagee against the mortgagor to foreclose, without interference with the rights of the first mortgagee, and declares its subordination thereof. The right of holder of the superior title is not questioned, and is not a necessary party. The subject of proper and necessary parties was discussed in Hodge v. Joy, 207 Ala. 198, 92 So. 171; Whiteman v. Taber, 203 Ala. 496, 83 So. 595. That is to say, the foreclosure of the second mortgage did not seek to disturb the rights of the first mortgagee, and recognized the same as being paramount to the lien of appellee mortgagee, and prays a foreclosure subject to said prior lien that is not yet due to the first mortgagee.

¶2 The terms of the second mortgage matured that debt before law day of the first mortgage, and gave the right of foreclosure upon default. In Graham v. Partee, 139 Ala. 310, 314, 35 So. 1016, 101 Am. St. Rep. 32, it is declared that a junior mortgagee may foreclose his mortgage, within its terms, subject to the lien of the prior incumbrance and that to said action the mortgagor is estopped to set up the defense of a prior outstanding mortgage. Wildman v. Means, 208 Ala. 487, 489, 94 So. 823.

¶3 The sale, sought by the bill, would vest title in the purchaser subject to the lien, securing the unmatured debt of the first mortgagee, and was not an effort to require foreclosure of the first mortgage for the payment of that debt and application of any balance to the second mortgage.

¶4 The lack of the latter effort differentiates *167 this case from the authorities cited by appellant. In such cases it is declared that a junior incumbrancer will not be permitted in equity to “enforce the incumbrance of the senior, for the payment, first, of the senior demand, and next” that of his own.

¶5 The remedy is to establish superiority and to redeem the land from the senior incumbrance or lien, and then enforce his lien or that acquired for reimbursement and satisfaction of his own demand. Hamilton v. Cody, 206 Ala. 102, 89 So. 240; Bingham v. Vandegrift, 93 Ala. 283, 9 So. 280; Ware v. Shoe Co., 92 Ala. 145, 150, 9 So. 136; Kelly v. Longshore, 78 Ala. 203; Threefoot Bros. & Co. v. Hillman, 130 Ala. 244, 30 So. 513, 89 Am. St. Rep. 39; Mims v. Cobbs, 110 Ala. 577, 18 So. 309; Jackson v. Farley, 212 Ala. 594, 103 So. 882; Fidelity Co. v. Richeson, 213 Ala. 461, 105 So. 193.

¶6 The judgment of the circuit court in equity is affirmed.

ANDERSON, C. J., and SOMERVILLE and BROWN, JJ., concur.
/217/ala/166 · .json · Public domain