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51 Ill. 331

Lilly v. Palmer

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided September 15, 1869

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1869-09-15

<p>Appeal from the Court of Common Pleas of the City of Aurora; the Hon. Richard Gr. Montony, Judge, presiding.</p> <p>The facts in this case are fully stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1869-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently November 1947

1 federal appellate · 16 state decisions

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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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Mr. Chief Justice Breese

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court :

¶2This was an action of assumpsit, in the court helow, brought by John Lilly, against Ormus Palmer, on a promissory note for $280, dated Nov. 18,1865, and payable on the first day of January, 1867, to Emery E. Hall, and by him endorsed without recourse.

¶3The general issue was pleaded, with leave to give special matter in evidence.

¶4The jury found for the defendant. A motion for a new trial was overruled and judgment rendered against the plaintiff for costs. To reverse this judgment the record is brought here by appeal.

¶5The note in question, it appears, was secured, with other notes, by mortgage on certain lands in I)e Kalb county, all payable to Hall, by Palmer. The amount of the notes were for $1,000. After the execution of the notes and mortgage, Palmer, on the 16th of January, 1866, sold this land to one Lydia A. Backer, subject to this mortgage, and so expressed in the deed, describing it as a mortgage for $800, which was filed for record on the 13th of March, 1866. In April following, Backer and wife conveyed this land to Mary Puller, with other land, taking a mortgage from her for $2,175, which mortgage Backer sold to the plaintiff, and after selling it, he bought back the land from Mrs. Fuller, and made a quit-claim deed of the same to the plaintiff on the 5th of January, 1867. Prior to this time, the plaintiff had purchased of Hall his mortgage and had the same assigned to him.

¶6The status of the plaintiff then, was this : By the conveyance from Backer, and from Hall, the first mortgagee, the estates of both mortgagor and mortgagee became vested in him.

¶7The deed from Palmer to Backer made the land the primary fund for the payment of the notes to Hall, of which the note in suit was one, and when the plaintiff took the deed from Backer, he became the owner of that fund, and he then stood in the attitude of a mortgagee who had effected a strict foreclosure.

¶8In Russell v. Pistor et al. 3 Selden (N. Y.) 171, it was held, where a mortgagor sells a part of the mortgaged premises, the purchaser assuming the payment of the mortgage as a part of the purchase money, the land purchased is, in his hands, the primary fund for the payment of the mortgage, and where the grantee of such a purchaser purchases the original mortgage, it is thereby paid and discharged.

¶9This case is directly in point on this question.

¶10The evidence shows the land was worth this mortgage, besides the fifteen dollars paid to Backer by plaintiff, and the rent of the land to him for one year, so that the plaintiff stands in the position of one who has effected a strict foreclosure. The jury, therefore, had a right to find the note was paid.

¶11The deed, with the suppletory proof by Backer that he had taken it to the proper office to be recorded, and paid the fees, was, with the endorsement on it, that it was filed for record, sufficient to allow it to go in evidence.

¶12The case was properly put to the jury by the instruction given for the defendant.

¶13The judgment must be affirmed.

¶14Judgment affirmed:

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