Cloud v. Gamble
| Decision Date | 12 April 1956 |
| Docket Number | 4 Div. 847 |
| Citation | 86 So.2d 836,264 Ala. 270 |
| Parties | Annie Dell CLOUD v. Barbara Dell GAMBLE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
J. Hubert Farmer, Dothan, for appellant.
W. G. Hardwick, Douthan, for appellee.
This is an appeal by Annie Dell Cloud from a decree of the circuit court of Houston County, in equity, overruling her demurrer to the amended bill filed against her by Barbara Dell Gamble.
The purpose of the bill was to secure a decree cancelling a mortgage foreclosure sale and the deed executed pursuant thereto on the ground of fraud.
The original bill was filed on January 26, 1955. The case made by the amended bill is substantially as follows:
On September 3, 1946, Barbara Dell Gamble, to whom we will sometimes refer hereafter as the complainant, secured a loan of $2,000 from the First National Bank of Dothan, Alabama, payment of which she secured by the execution of a mortgage on a piece of business property of which she was the owner situate in the city of Dothan. At that time complainant was between eighteen and twenty-one years of age. She was married but was living in the home of the respondent, Annie Dell Cloud, her foster mother, separate and apart from her husband. Complainant was inexperienced in business transactions and subject to the domination and control of the respondent, at whose instance the loan was procured and the mortgage executed and to whom all of the proceeds of the loan were delivered.
On October 5, 1946, respondent, Annie Dell Cloud, paid the $2,000 which she had received from the complainant to the First National Bank of Dothan and thereby had the mortgage transferred and assigned to her.
Thereafter, on May 20, 1947, the respondent, as assignee of the bank, had the mortgage foreclosed in accordance with the power of sale therein contained.
On the day of foreclosure but prior to the time of the sale, the complainant, accompanied by the respondent, went to the office of an attorney employed by respondent, where the respondent advised complainant that the mortgage property was not worth more than $10,000. The complainant being ignorant of the value of that property and relying on the representations made by the respondent, in whom she reposed trust and confidence, agreed with the respondent that the latter could have the property for the sum of $10,000, irrespective of the amount she had to bid to become the purchaser at the foreclosure sale.
The respondent and three other persons were bidders at the foreclosure sale. One of the other persons bid the sum of $27,000 for the mortgaged property, whereupon the respondent bid the sum of $27,500 and thereby became the purchaser. According to the foreclosure deed, which as assignee of the mortgagee bank the respondent executed to herself as purchaser, the purchase price was $27,500.
The respondent paid no money to complainant for her equity in the mortgaged property, but two days after the foreclosure deed was executed the respondent and the complainant again went to the office of the attorney then representing the respondent who, under the direction of respondent, prepared a mortgage for $10,000 covering the suit property, which respondent as mortgagor executed to complainant as mortgagee.
Shortly thereafter the complainant transferred and assigned the last mentioned mortgage to one Grimsley, from whom the complainant received the sum of $10,000.
Respondent took possession of the suit property immediately after the foreclosure sale and continued to collect the rentals therefrom, which amounted to $160 a month. With such rental money the respondent paid off the mortgage held by Grimsley, who on March 29, 1954, had the mortgage satisfied of record.
Complainant does not rely upon the averments pertaining to the execution of the mortgage to the First National Bank of Dothan as a separate ground for relief. Such averments, however, are relevant as going to show the origin of the scheme used by the respondent by which she ultimately obtained title to the suit property from her foster child without the use of any of her own funds.
Actually, the complainant seeks to have the court set aside the foreclosure deed on the ground that the respondent, in whom the complainant reposed trust and confidence, fraudulently represented to complainant that the suit property at the time of the foreclosure sale was not worth more than $10,000 when she knew full well that it was worth considerably more and in fraudulently secreting from complainant the true value of the property in...
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Browning v. Palmer
...circumstances, the court presumed that during that two-year period the mortgagor had elected to ratify the sale. Cloud v. Gamble, 264 Ala. 270, 86 So.2d 836 (1956); Hawk v. Moore, 260 Ala. 228, 69 So.2d 419 (1954); Dozier v. Farrior, 187 Ala. 181, 65 So. 364 (1914); Alexander v. Hill, 88 Al......
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Garris v. Federal Land Bank of Jackson
...circumstances, the court presumed that during that two-year period the mortgagor had elected to ratify the sale. Cloud v. Gamble, 264 Ala. 270, 86 So.2d 836 (1956); Hawk v. Moore, 260 Ala. 228, 69 So.2d 419 (1954); Dozier v. Farrior, 187 Ala. 181, 65 So. 364 (1914); Alexander v. Hill, 88 Al......
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Eaton v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs, CIVIL ACTION 20-0354-WS-M
...lapse of two years that rule is relaxed and the presumption of ratification is not given effect.'" Id. at 528 (quoting Cloud v. Gamble, 86 So. 2d 836, 838 (Ala. 1956)). Thus, neither "the presumption discussed in Garris [nor] the one-year statutory right of redemption ... create[s] an impli......
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