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60 Ga. 484

Smith v. Bowne

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided January 15, 1878

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1878-01-15

Equity. Mortgage. Levy and sale. Before Judge Wright. Decatur Superior Court. November Term, 1877. Smith et al. filed their bill against Bowne etat., making, in substance, the case presented by the head-note, and praying that the land be resold under the mortgage lien, and the proceeds be appropriated to the satisfaction of the notes held by them, and the balance paid to the purchasers at the prior sale under the common law execution.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently April 1943

8 state decisions

3018781880189019001910192019301940decided

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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Bleckley, Judge.

¶1This is a case of which no perfectly satisfactory disposition can be made. The superior court did with it the best that was possible, and we leave the judgment to stand. All who were interested in the mortgage should have been vigilant in watching their security. When proceedings were commenced to foreclose the mortgage, they should have come forward and had themselves made parties. Not to do so was laches, and they must abide the consequences. Their due share of the fund, produced by a sale of the property under the general judgment, may be reached by this proceeding in equity ; but they cannot subject the property to a re-sale. It has been legally sold (Code, §1967), and the purchaser took it divested of the mortgage lien. TJnder the evidence, there is no certainty that it did not bring its full value. True it is that thus to rule on the lien is to treat the mortgage as foreclosed for all that was due upon the outstanding notes ; whereas the foreclosure, though in the name of the mortgagee, was for the use of but one of *486the holders, and took no account of the notes which were in the hands of other holders. But these holders ought’to have seen to having the foreclosure suit broad enough to comprehend their claims. To have numerous foreclosures of the same mortgage after all the notes secured by it have come to maturity, would seem anomalous. Provision is made for a single foreclosure as to the whole, where the debt matures by installments. Code, §§1965, 3970.

¶2For cases having some resemblance to the present one, in their facts, see 2 Florida, 27; 6 Ib., 171; 1 Hilliard on Mortgages, 243, et seq., and notes; 10 Smede & M., 631.

¶3Cited for plaintiff in error: Code, §§1965, 1967, 3973, 3974 ; 20 Ga., 723 ; 25 Ib., 316 ; 20 Ib., 344 ; 27 Ib.. 205 ; 22 Ib., 34; 32 16., 228 ; 18 Ib., 278 ; 46 16., 488 ; Code, §2787; 9 Ga., 87; 32 Ib., 234; 7 Am. Com. Law, S. P., 81; 2 Am. Chan. Dig., 208 ; 1 Johns., 580.

¶4Cited for defendant in error: Code, §§1965, 1967, 3970.

¶5Judgment affirmed.

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