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36 N.H. 39

Blake v. Williams

Supreme Court of New Hampshire

Decided July 15, 1857

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1857-07-15

In Equity. The facts of this case may be stated as follows: On the 14th day of January, 1842, one Lewis H. Masseure was the owner of one lot of land and part of another, situated in Stark, in this county, and on that day conveyed the same to one David Learney. On the same day Learney mortgaged the premises to Masseure, to secure the payment of two notes of that date, for $ 100 each ; and these notes remain unpaid.

Relies on Southerin v. Mendum · Rigney v. Lovejoy

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1857-07-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently May 1937

1 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

30185718601870188018901900191019201930decided

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.

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Eastman, J.

¶1.By the agreement between the parties, it becomes necessary to determine in the first place whether the defendants are in a position to show that the mortgage held by the complainants was without consideration, and made with a view of perpetrating some fraud.

¶2It is not contended that any fraud has been practised between any of the parties in this suit upon each other. It is admitted that the first mortgage is good, and that no one of the complainants or defendants has been defrauded by the making or transfer of the second. It is to he observed, also, that here is no complaint made by creditors or third persons. Silas Lunn, who took the quitclaim deed of Learney in 1853, is privy with Lear-ney, and bound by the covenants in the mortgages, which were both made and recorded in 1842.

¶3The position, then, is this, — that parties to a mortgage, made for the purpose of defrauding third persons, may, as between themselves, show the intended fraud, to make void the mortgage. It is manifest that such a position cannot be maintained. The parties should be left where they have left themselves, and the law will aid neither of them. When creditors or innocent persons shall complain, the consideration may then be inquired into.

¶4The transfer of the notes by Draper to Chubbuck was good. It is unnecessary to consider whether it was a donatio causa mortis, because there was a good consideration for the transfer— the money let and the service rendered. Mr. Williams, as administrator, therefore, has no legal claim upon the notes.

¶5The transfer, too, by Mrs. Chubbuck to Lunn and Cole was also good. Her deed was invalid, because she had no power to make it; but she had due authority to sell the notes, and the mortgage passed as incident to the notes. Southerin v. Mendum, 5 N. H. 420 ; Rigney v. Lovejoy, 13 N. H. 247; Wilson v. Kimball, 7 Foster 300.

¶6The defendants, Lunn and Cole, holding these notes and mortgage, should give an account of the amount due to the subsequent mortgagees, or their assigns, that the same may be paid. They are as much bound to give an account as the original mort*43gagee. Rev. Stat., ch. 131, sec. 16. And Silas Lunn, who holds the right of Learney- to redeem, should pay the second mortgage, or the right to redeem should be foreclosed. This is the only way in which equity and right can be done between the parties.

¶7The quitclaim from Learney to Lunn, in 1853, could not cut off the second mortgage. It could not operate as a foreclosure of the first mortgage. Both mortgages were recorded in 1842, eleven years before the quitclaim to Lunn. The quitclaim simply placed Lunn in Learney’s position.

¶8We think that the prayer of the bill should be granted, and a decree may be drawn in accordance with these views.

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