Brooks v. Federal Land Bank of Columbia

• Decision Date: 09 August 1932
• Citation: 106 Fla. 412,143 So. 749
• Parties: BROOKS et al. v. FEDERAL LAND BANK OF COLUMBIA.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

143 So. 749

106 Fla. 412

BROOKS et al. v. FEDERAL LAND BANK OF COLUMBIA.

Florida Supreme Court, Division A.

August 9, 1932

Rehearing Denied Oct. 10, 1932.

Suit by the Federal Land Bank of Columbia against William A. Brooks individually and as administrator of the estate of William M Brooks, deceased, Sue G. Brooks, Charlotte E. Brooks Austin and others. From orders holding certain pleas insufficient and referring cause to special master, defendants named appeal.

Reversed. Appeal from Circuit Court, Citrus County; F. L. Stringer, judge.

COUNSEL

Thomas Palmer, of Tampa, and Scofield & Scofield, of Inverness, for appellants.

Hull, Landis & Whitehair, of Deland, and Strauss L. Lloyd, of Inverness, for appellee.

OPINION

ELLIS J.

William M. Brooks in August, 1918, became indebted to the Federal Land Bank of Columbia in the sum of $5,500. That indebtedness was evidenced by the promissory note of Brooks and his wife.

The note by its terms was made payable on an amortization plan in thirty-four annual installments of $357.50 each, the first installment payable July 1, 1920, the subsequent installments were payable at the same time in each succeeding year until the principal should be paid. Any installment in which there was a default should bear 8 per cent. interest. The Lecanto National Farm Loan Association indorsed the note.

Brooks and his wife, in order to secure the payment of the note, executed and delivered to the Federal Land Bank of Columbia a mortgage upon certain lands located in Citrus and Hernando counties. The mortgage was duly recorded in August, 1918. The mortgage contained a covenant that the mortgagors would pay the debt and interest according to the plan described.

Brooks died June 24, 1923, leaving a will, but appointed no executor. He left surviving him a widow, a son William A. Brooks, and a daughter Charlotte E. Brooks. The testator devised all his property to hiw widow and children. William A. Brooks was appointed administrator with the will annexed.

Seven installments were paid, five of them after the death of Brooks and after the appointment of the administrator. No other installments have been paid. The installments due July 1, 1927, and July 1, 1928, were not paid, so on November 24, 1928, the Federal Land Bank of Columbia exhibited its bill in the circuit court for Citrus county to enforce the mortgage lien, making William A. Brooks, individually and as administrator of the estate of William M. Brooks, Sue G. Brooks, widow, Charlotte E. Brooks Austin, P. L. Weeks, Letta C. Benjamin, as administratrix of the estate of George N. Benjamin, the Lecanto National Farm Loan Association, and others defendants as having or claiming to have some interest in the premises. Several of the defendants answered averring the ownership by them of claims in the form of statutory liens for services, judgments, and mortgages.

William A. Brooks, individually and as administrator, filed pleas to the bill averring that as administrator he gave notice to all creditors of William M. Brooks, deceased, to present their claims to the administrator within two years, the date of the notice being August 4, 1923; that the notice was published for eight weeks consecutively in a weekly newspaper in Citrus county and proof of the publication was made and filed in the probate court for Citrus county; that the complainant did not file its claim with the administrator or with the probate court within two years from the date of the notice or at any time thereafter; that the administrator has never paid or caused to be paid any sums of money upon the indebtedness since the death of W. M. Brooks; therefore the defendant avers that the complainant's claim has become a 'non-claim and has become barred, lost, forfeited and extinguished and is no longer a valid and binding debt, demand or claim against the estate.'

The defendants Sue G. Brooks, widow, and Charlotte E. Brooks Austin interposed pleas to the same effect.

On the same date the above pleas were filed, February 4, 1929, William A. Brooks, as administrator, interposed an answer to the bill admitting most of its material allegations as to the note, mortgage, recordation of the latter, but denied that it is a valid claim against the estate because of the statute of nonclaim, and disclaimed any knowledge of payments upon the debt as alleged, and averred in substance the same facts as to nonclaim as were averred in the plea and that neither the complainant nor any of the other defendants who were alleged to have interests in the premises by reason of liens, judgments, or mortgages presented their claims within the two years from the date of the notice, or at any time thereafter.

A demurrer was incorporated in the answer. That answer was adopted by William A. Brooks individually, Sue G. Brooks, widow, and Charlotte E. Brooks Austin.

Lengthy motions to strike portions of the different answers filed were interposed. Demurrers to such portions of the answers of Brooks, as administrator, seeking affirmative relief in the nature of a cancellation of all claims were also interposed, and the cause finally came on to be heard upon the sufficiency of the pleas and motions and demurrers on October 3, 1929.

The chancellor held the pleas to be insufficient, struck certain portions of the answers setting up the defense of nonclaim, and the defendants W. A. Brooks, individually and as administrator, Sue G. Brooks, and Charlotte E. Brooks Austin took an appeal from that order as well as from an order on October 29, 1929, referring the cause to a special master to take testimony upon the issues remaining as presented by those portions of the answers left in the record.

The substance of this controversy may easily be reduced to the very simple question whether the Federal Land Bank of Columbia, a corporation created by an act of Congress entitled 'The Federal Farm Loan Act' (12 USCA § 641 et seq.), is bound by the statutes of this state relating to nonclaim; if so, is the claim described in the bill such a claim as contemplated by the act, and further, if both questions are answered in the affirmative, was the plea deficient because of the failure to aver when the proof of the publication of the administrator's notice was filed in the probate court.

It is a poor commentary upon the system of pleading as practiced in this state that the lengthy pleading, answers, demurrers, and motions to strike should have accmulated to swell the record, entail costs, and consume time in order to present the question upon the one phase of the controversy upon which all other matters seem to depend.

Brooks died June 24, 1923. The administrator published the notice in August, 1923. It was dated August 4th, and first published August 10, 1923. Two years from those dates was August 4, 10, 1925.

At the time of the death of Brooks, the appointment of the administrator, and the first publishing of the notice to creditors, the statute of nonclaim required debts and demands of whatsoever nature against an estate to be presented to the executor or administrator within two years after the first publication of the notice, or be forever afterward barred. See sections 2398, 2405, Fla. Comp. Laws 1914.

Exception was made in case of infants, persons of unsound mind, and certain others, in which classes the complainant's claim would not fall.

Before the expiration of the two years from the date of the first publication of the notice, chapter 10119, Laws 1925, approved June 4, 1925, became effective, but by its terms any claims or demands against the estate of a decedent where advertisement or notice had theretofore been published or given or was then being published were expressly declared to be not affected by the act. That act required the presentation of the claims to be made to the county judge at his office in the courthouse within oue year from the first publication of the notice. Then came the act, chapter 11994, Laws 1927, approved June 4, 1927, more than one year and five months before the complainant's bill was filed, but that act also contained the same provision as chapter 10119, supra, in respect of those claims against an estate where notice had been or was being given by the administrator to creditors.

So it is that sections 2398, 2405, Fla. Comp. Laws 1914, supra, contained the law upon the subject of nonclaim which is applicable, if at all, to this case. No provision existed however as in chapter 11994, Laws 1927, supra, as to the lien of a duly recorded mortgage on real property and the right to foreclose it not being impaired or affected by failure to present the claim to the county judge or administrator.

In some jurisdictions statutes such as these are held to be jurisdictional, and unless complied with the court has no power to allow the claim. In re Agee's Estate, 69 Utah, 130, 252 P. 891, 50 A. L. R. 641.

In this jurisdiction it has been held that a mortgage by an intestate nor presented to the administrator within the statute of nonclaim is barred in the absence of payment of interest or other act of estoppel. Fremd v. Hogg, 68 Fla. 331, 67 So. 75, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 155; Tucker v. First Nat. Bank, 98 Fla. 914, 124 So. 464.

In the latter case, the payment of interest upon the mortgage note by the administrator was held to constitute a waiver by the executor of formal presentation of the mortgage claim to the county judge under chapter 10119, supra, where the mortgage lien was shown of record. The value of the opinion consists in establishing the rule that where the mortgage was duly recorded and interest was paid by the executor within...