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93 Ind. 480

Dodge v. Pope

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided November 22, 1883

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1883-11-22

<p>Pbactice. — Special Finding. — New Trial. — Evidence.—Where a special finding is silent upon a material fact, it is deemed a finding as to that fact against the party who has the burden of proof, and if it is against the evidence the appropriate remedy is by a motion for a new trial.</p> <p>Same. — Effect of Exceptions to Conclusions of Law. — The effect of an exception to the conclusions of law stated on a special finding is to concede the correctness of the finding for the purposes of the exception, but it does not cut off a motion for a new trial.</p> <p>Same. — Motion for New Trial. — Time of Filing. — The code of 1852 required that the motion for a new trial should be filed at the term at which the special finding of facts was filed.</p> <p>Same. — Effect of Adding to Special Finding. — Where the appellant procures an addition to be made to special finding at a former term, he can not complain of the action of the court, and where the additions are made by directing that the record of the former term be interlined, they will be deemed, as against the party procuring the order, to have been made _ at that term.</p> <p>Pbomissoby Note. — Sale of. — Estoppel.—Representations of Assignor of Mortgage. — The holder of notes secured by mortgage who represents to a person to whom he offers such notes for sale, that the mortgage by which they are secured is a paramount lien, and thereby induces the person to whom such representations are made to buy the notes, can not afterwards assert, to the injury of the buyer of such notes, that there was a prior mortgage.</p> <p>Same. — Extent of Estoppel. — One who represents a fact to exist and thereby induces another to act is estopped not only to deny that such a fact does exist, but he is also estopped to dispute any of the legal consequences of the fact represented to exist.</p> <p>Fraud. — Representations of Matters of Record. — Mortgage.—A party who represents that the mortgage which he offers for sale is the only mortgage of record is bound by such representation, although an examination of • the record would have disclosed the existence of a prior mortgage.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1883-11-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently July 1981 · most notably Carrell v. Ellingwood (1981), Vinton v. Baldwin (1884)

1 federal appellate · 46 state decisions

17018831890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

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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¶1On Petition for a Rehearing.

Elliott, J.

¶2— We deem it only necessary to notice two points made in the argument on the petition for a rehearing, as the others are fully covered by our former opinion.

¶3It may be true, as appellant now contends, that it was error to add to the record at the subsequent term; but we are unable to see how appellant can expect to have a complaint made by him heeded or regarded. The change in the record was procured by him, and he is in no situation to complain. If he had desired to question the course pursued by the court, he should have adopted a very different line of action from that pursued by him; he acquiesced in the ruling of the court without objection or exception, and he has, on this branch of the case, no question in the record.

¶4We are well satisfied that the representation made by the appellant to the appellee that the mortgage bought by the latter, and upon which he secured title, was the first mortgage, estops the appellant from disturbing appellee’s title, or from recovering money from him on account of the mortgage of an antecedent date. The representation made by the appellant was one upon which the appellee had a right to rely, and *487he was not hound to look behind the mortgage represented to him to be the first, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were holders of apparent equities whom it was necessary to make parties to the foreclosure suit.

Filed Feb. 20, 1884.

¶5The representation estopped the appellant from asserting that there was any mortgage anterior in date to that sold by •him to the appellee. Having once affirmed that the mortgage which he induced the appellee to buy was the oldest, he can not, in the face of that representation, be heard to aver that there was an older mortgage. As against the appellee, he can not gainsay what he said; he can not bring forth a mortgage older in date for any purpose whatsoever.

¶6A representation operates to estop the person making it from denying or evading the legal effect of the fact represented to exist.' An estoppel is by no means confined to the bare existence or non-existence of the fact, but extends to the legal consequences directly and legitimately resulting from the fact. We have not made the estoppel reach beyond the effect of the representation. The legal effect of the estoppel extends to appellee’s entire conduct, the purchase of the mortgage, the foreclosure suit, and the acquisition of title. In all rights acquired by virtue of these things, he is entitled to protection against a claim founded on a mortgage anterior in date. Appellant can not make the antecedent mortgage available against the appellee in any form. Having said there was no such thing, he can not now say there was such a thing. In equity and in law, the appellant has no right to suggest that there was such a mortgage. In no shape or form is he entitled to benefit from it to appellee’s injury.

¶7Petition overruled.

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