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23 Wis. 136

Steinart v. Deuster

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided June 15, 1868

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1868-06-15

Eeplevin, for a stock of merchandise. Plaintiff claimed under a mortgage from one Fisher, to secure a promissory note for $1,000, money loaned by plaintiff to Fisher, which mortgage was filed in the clerk’s office, August 21, 1861, and contained a clause giving the mortgagee power to take possession, .whenever he should deem himself insecure. Defendant claimed as sheriff, by virtue of an attachment against the property of said Fisher.

Relies on Place v. Langworthy

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently March 1963

1 federal appellate · 2 district · 6 state decisions

2018681870188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

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 →

Dixon, C. J.

¶1The verbal agreement between the mortgagor and mortgagee, that the mortgagor was to retain possession of the goods and sell them in the regular course of his business as if no mortgage had been executed, and apply the proceeds to his own use in the support of his family and otherwise, makes the mortgage fraudulent in law, and void as to creditors of the mortgagor, the same as if the agreement had been in writing and inserted in the mortgage itself. The case in this particular is not distinguishable from Place v. Langworthy, 13 Wis. 629. The agreement was sworn to by the mortgagor, and not denied by the mortgagee, both being examined as witnesses on the trial; and the mortgagee himself testifies that with full knowledge on his part, and without objection, .the business was carried on, the goods sold an'd the proceeds appropriated by the mortgagor, in the same manner after the execution of the mortgage as before. Under these circumstances, the court was in error in submitting it to the jury as a question of good faith on the part of the mortgagee at the time of loaning his money and receiving the mortgage. The jury should have been instructed that if they found such to have been the facts, the mortgage was fraudulent and void in law as against the creditors of the mortgagor.

¶2By the Cowt. — Judgment reversed, and a new trial awarded.

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