Estate of Hastings v. Planters and Stockmen Bank

• Decision Date: 21 October 1991
• Docket Number: No. 91-92,91-92
• Citation: 818 S.W.2d 239,307 Ark. 34
• Parties: ESTATE of Virgie HASTINGS, Appellant, v. PLANTERS AND STOCKMEN BANK, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 239

818 S.W.2d 239

307 Ark. 34

ESTATE of Virgie HASTINGS, Appellant, v. PLANTERS AND STOCKMEN BANK, Appellee.

No. 91-92.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Oct. 21, 1991.

Dan Stripling, Clinton, for appellant.

Murray L. Grider, Pocahontas, Robert Crank, Walnut Ridge, Scott Davidson, Jonesboro, for appellee.

BROWN, Justice.

This is an appeal from an order of the chancery court denying the appellant, the Estate of Virgie Hastings, an incompetent, judgment on the pleadings against the appellee, Planters and Stockmen Bank. It is also a cross appeal by the cross appellant Bank from an order denying the Bank summary judgment on grounds of laches. We affirm on direct appeal and dismiss the cross appeal.

On December 28, 1983, Richard Hastings and Laveda Hastings, his wife, who were the owners of a sports business named Sportshaven in Jonesboro, executed a promissory note in conjunction with Virgie Hastings, the grandmother of Richard Hastings, in the amount of $169,000 in favor of the Bank. As security for this note, Virgie Hastings assigned a promissory note made payable solely to her by Louis Ahrent in the principal amount of $256,000. On December 7, 1984, a guardian of the person and the estate of Virgie Hastings was appointed due to her incompetency.

On October 3, 1985, the Bank sued to collect on its promissory note and joined Virgie Hastings as a party defendant. The Estate answered and counterclaimed, denying execution of the note and raising lack of mental capacity to make the note. On July 15, 1986, the Bank obtained summary judgment against Richard and Laveda Hastings. On December 11, 1987, the Estate amended its counterclaim to include a prayer for repayment of all sums paid the Bank from the Ahrent proceeds or, alternatively, for any overage paid the Bank by the Estate. On January 4, 1988, the circuit court expanded its summary judgment order to include the Estate of Virgie Hastings and terminated all issues pending between the Bank and the Estate.

On the first appeal by the Estate, this court reversed the circuit court's expanded summary judgment order on the basis that material facts concerning Virgie Hastings's execution of the note remained to be determined and the order was not final. See Estate of Hastings v. Planters and Stockmen Bank, 296 Ark. 409, 757 S.W.2d 546 (1988). On remand the Bank first moved for summary judgment on grounds that the Estate's counterclaim was barred by laches. This motion was denied. The Bank then moved to transfer the case to equity due to its laches defense and in that motion declared that it "requests no relief from the Estate of Virgie Hastings, the incompetent." The Estate moved for judgment on the pleadings on grounds that this statement in the Bank's motion evidenced an abandonment of its claim against the Estate. On February 21, 1990, the circuit court denied the Estate's motion for judgment and transferred the case to chancery. By order entered December 29, 1990, the chancery court, after a full hearing, found that the money from the Ahrent note had overpayed the Estate's obligation to the Bank, and that the Estate was entitled to judgment against the Bank in the amount of $60,196.23. In that same order the chancery court found that Virgie Hastings was competent when she executed the note to the Bank and assigned the Ahrent note on December 28, 1983.

The Estate first argues that the chancery court erred in denying its motion for judgment on the pleadings under Ark.R.Civ.P. 12(c) (1991). The thrust of the Estate's argument is that the Bank "pled itself out of court" by stating that it requested no relief against the Estate in its motion to transfer.

There was an obvious reason for the Bank to relinquish its claim against the estate--it had been paid in full by the proceeds from the Ahrent note. To argue now, as the Estate does, that this relinquishment somehow voids the Bank's prior cause of action and mandates repayment of all payments made to the Bank on behalf of Virgie Hastings, as prayed for in the Estate's counterclaim, does not logically follow.

It is the position of the Estate that a party must put on proof and take judgment before it can be made whole. The Estate gives much weight to the fact that the Bank did have judgment against the Estate when it collected the Ahrent proceeds to pay off the Hastings note. There was also a stipulation between the Bank and the Estate at the time the Ahrent proceeds were paid which stated that payment would not affect the Estate's counterclaim against the Bank in the event that the judgment against the Estate was reversed on appeal.

But the fact that the summary judgment against the Estate was reversed by this court does not automatically mean that the Ahrent note proceeds paid to the Bank in...