Home Building Loan Ass v. Blaisdell

• Decision Date: 08 January 1934
• Docket Number: No. 370,370
• Parties: HOME BUILDING & LOAN ASS'N v. BLAISDELL et ux
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

290 U.S. 398

54 S.Ct. 231

78 L.Ed. 413

HOME BUILDING & LOAN ASS'N

v BLAISDELL et ux.

No. 370.

Argued Nov. 8, 9, 1933.

Decided Jan. 8, 1934.

Appeal from the Supreme Court of the State of Minnesota.

[Syllabus from pages 398-400 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Karl H. Covell and Alfred W. Bowen, both of Minneapolis, Minn., for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 402-408 intentionally omitted]

Page 409

Messrs. Harry H. Peterson and Wm. S. Ervin, both of St. Paul, Minn., for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 409-415 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellant contests the validity of chapter 339 of the Laws of Minnesota of 1933, p. 514, approved April 18, 1933, called the Minnesota Mortgage Moratorium Law as being repugnant to the contract clause (article 1, § 10) and the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The statute was sustained by the Supreme Court of Minnesota (249 N.W. 334, 86 A.L.R. 1507; 249 N.W. 893), and the case comes here on appeal.

The act provides that, during the emergency declared to exist, relief may be had through authorized judicial proceedings with respect to foreclosures of mortgages, and execution sales, of real estate; that sales may be postponed and periods of redemption may be extended. The act does not apply to mortgages subsequently made nor to those made previously which shall be extended for a period ending more than a year after the passage of the act (part 1, § 8). There are separate provisions in part 2 relating to homesteads, but these are to apply 'only to cases not entitled to relief under some valid provision of Part One.' The act is to remain in effect 'only during the continuance of the emergency and in no event beyond May 1, 1935.' No extension of the period for redemption and no postponement of sale is to be allowed which would have the effect of extending the period of redemption beyond that date. Part 2, § 8.

The act declares that the various provisions for relief are severable; that each is to stand on its own footing with respect to validity. Part 1, § 9. We are here concerned with the provisions of part 1, § 4, authorizing the district court of the county to extend the period of redemption from foreclosure sales 'for such additional time as the court may deem just and equitable,' subject to the above-described limitation. The extension is to be made upon application to the court, on notice, for an order determining the reasonable value of the income on the property involved in the sale, or, if it has no income, then the reasonable rental value of the property, and directing the mortgagor 'to pay all or a reasonable part of such income or rental value, in or toward the payment of taxes, insurance, interest, mortgage * * * indebtedness at such times and in such manner' as shall be determined by the court.¹ The section also provides that the time for re- demption from foreclosure sales theretofore made, which otherwise would expire less than thirty days after the approval of the act, shall be extended to a date thirty days after its approval, and application may be made to the court within that time for a further extension as provided in the section. By another provision of the act, no action, prior to May 1, 1935, may be maintained for a deficiency judgment until the period of redemption as allowed by existing law or as extended under the provisions of the act has expired. Prior to the expiration of the extended period of redemption, the court may revise or alter the terms of the extension as changed circumstances may require. Part 1, § 5.

Invoking the relevant provision of the statute, appellees applied to the district court of Hennepin county for an order extending the period of redemption from a foreclosure sale. Their petition stated that they owned a lot in Minneapolis which they had mortgaged to appellant; that the mortgage contained a valid power of sale by advertisement, and that by reason of their default the mortgage had been foreclosed and sold to appellant on May 2, 1932, for $3,700.98; that appellant was the holder of the sheriff's certificate of sale; that, because of the economic depression, appellees had been unable to obtain a new loan or to redeem, and that, unless the period of redemption were extended, the property would be irretrievably lost; and that the reasonable value of the property greatly exceeded the amount due on the mortgage, including all liens, costs, and expenses.

On the hearing, appellant objected to the introduction of evidence upon the ground that the statute was invalid under the federal and state Constitutions, and moved that the petition be dismissed. The motion was granted, and a motion for a new trial was denied. On appeal, the Supreme Court of the state reversed the decision of the district court. 249 N.W. 334, 337, 86 A.L.R. 1507. Evidence was then taken in the trial court, and appellant renewed its constitutional objections without avail. The court made findings of fact setting forth the mortgage made by the appellees on August 1, 1928, the power of sale contained in the mortgage, the default and foreclosure by advertisement, and the sale to appellant on May 2, 1932, for $3,700.98. The court found that the time to redeem would expire on May 2, 1933, under the laws of the state as they were in effect when the mortgage was made and when it was foreclosed; that the reasonable value of the income on the property, and the reasonable rental value, was $40 a month; that the bid made by appellant on the foreclosure sale, and the purchase price, were the full amount of the mortgage indebtedness, and that there was no deficiency after the sale; that the reasonable present market value of the premises was $6,000; and that the total amount of the purchase price, with taxes and insurance premiums subsequently paid by appellant, but exclusive of interest from the date of sale, was $4,056.39. The court also found that the property was situated in the closely built-up portions of Minneapolis; that it had been improved by a two-car garage, together with a building two stories in height which was divided into fourteen rooms; that the appellees, husband and wife, occupied the premises as their homestead, occupying three rooms and offering the remaining rooms for rental to others.

The court entered its judgment extending the period of redemption of May 1, 1935, subject to the condition that the appellees should pay to the appellant $40 a month through the extended period from May 2, 1933; that is, that in each of the months of August, September, and October, 1933, the payments should be $80, in two installments, and thereafter $40 a month, all these amounts to go to the payment of taxes, insurance, interest, and mortgage indebtedness.² It is this judgment, sustained by the Supreme Court of the state on the authority of its former opinion, which is here under review. 249 N.W. 893.

The state court upheld the statute as an emergency measure. Although conceding that the obligations of the mortgage contract were impaired, the court decided that what it thus described as an impairment was, notwithstanding the contract cause of the Federal Constitution, within the police power of the state as that power was called into exercise by the public economic emergency which the Legislature had found to exist. Attention is thus directed to the preamble and first section of the statute which described the existing emergency in terms that were deemed to justify the temporary relief which the statute affords.³ The state court, declaring that it could not say that this legislative finding was without basis, supplemented that finding by its own statement of conditions of which it took judicial notice. The court said:

'In addition to the weight to be given the determination of the Legislature that an economic emergency exists which demands relief, the court must take notice of other considerations. The members of the Legislature come from every community of the state and from all the walks of life. They are familiar with conditions generally in every calling, occupation, profession, and business in the state. Not only they, but the courts must be guided by what is common knowledge. It is common knowledge that in the last few years land values have shrunk enormously. Loans made a few years ago upon the basis of the then going values cannot possibly be replaced on the basis of present values. We all know that when this law was enacted the large financial companies, which had made it their business to invest in mortgages, had ceased to do so. No bank would directly or indirectly loan on real estate mortgages. Life insurance companies, large investors in such mortgages, had even declared a moratorium as to the loan provisions of their policy contracts. The President had closed banks temporarily. The Con- gress, in addition to many extraordinary measures looking to the relief of the economic emergency, had passed an act to supply funds whereby mortgagors may be able within a reasonable time to refinance their mortgages or redeem from sales where the redemption has not expired. With this knowledge the court cannot well hold that the Legislature had no basis in fact for the conclusion that an economic emergency existed which called for the exercise of the police power to grant relief.'

Justice Olsen of the state court, in a concurring opinion, added the following:

'The present nation wide and world wide business and financial crisis has the same results as if it were caused by flood, earthquake, or disturbance in nature. It has deprived millions of persons in this nation of their employment and means of earning a living for themselves and their families; it has destroyed the value of and the income from all property on which thousands of people depended for a living; it actually has resulted in the loss of their homes by a...