John Hooker v. John Burr

• Decision Date: 16 May 1904
• Docket Number: No. 263,263
• Citation: 194 U.S. 415,24 S.Ct. 706,48 L.Ed. 1046
• Parties: JOHN D. HOOKER, Plff, in Err. , v. JOHN BURR, A. W. Rhodes, and W. A. Hammel
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

194 U.S. 415

24 S.Ct. 706

48 L.Ed. 1046

JOHN D. HOOKER, Plff, in Err.,

v JOHN BURR, A. W. Rhodes, and W. A. Hammel.

No. 263.

Submitted April 26, 1904.

Decided May 16, 1904.

The plaintiff in error commenced this action in the proper state court to procure a decree canceling a deed of the premises mentioned in the complaint, executed by the defendant Hammel to the defendant Rhodes, and also directing that a deed should be executed to the plaintiff by defendant Hammel or Burr, or both, conveying the same property to the plaintiff, which had been purchased by him under the sale in foreclosure hereinafter mentioned. Defendant Burr was sheriff at the time of that sale, and conducted the same, and executed the certificate of sale June 13, 1898. His term of office expired in January, 1899, and defendant Hammel became his successor, and, as such, executed the deed to defendant Rhodes, which plaintiff in error asks to have set aside. The two defendants, Burr and Hammel, were made parties herein because it was not certain which one of them should be decreed to execute the deed to plaintiff which he asks for in this suit.

The defendants, by their answer, denied many of the material allegations of the complaint, and the case went to trial before the court, and, a judgment having been entered dismissing the complaint on the merits, an appeal was taken to the supreme court of California, which affirmed the judgment (137 Cal. 663, 70 Pac. 778), and the plaintiff has brought the case here. The material facts are as follows:

On October 16, 1893, Anna P. and Ambrose H. Spencer, then being the owners of the property, mortgaged the same to one Jacob Swiggart, to secure the payment of a promissory note of the same date for $5,000. This note and mortgage were subsequently assigned by Swiggart to Charles H. Bishop, who afterwards commenced a suit upon the note and mortgage to recover the amount due on the former, and to foreclose the mortgage. On May 14, 1898, a judgment was entered in the case, whereby it was adjudged that there was due to the plaintiff upon the note the sum of $6,782.49, and that the same was a lien upon the mortgaged premises, and there was also a judgment for the sale of the premises to obtain payment of the sum found due on the note. On May 16, 1898, an execution upon the judgment was issued to the sheriff (Burr) and on June 13, 1898, he sold to the plaintiff in error, Hooker, the mortgaged premises for the sum of $9,500, who thereupon paid the amount of his bid to Burr, and Burr then gave a certificate of sale to the plaintiff as the purchaser. Plaintiff alleges that he was entitled to a deed from the sheriff of date December 13, 1898, that being six months after his purchase at the foreclosure sale. On December 12, 1898, Rhodes, one of the defendants (who was a judgment creditor of Spencer, the mortgagor), issued an execution on his judgment, and assumed to redeem the land from the foreclosure sale by the payment of $10,070 to the sheriff, to be paid to the purchaser, the plaintiff in error, being the amount of the purchase price paid by the latter at the foreclosure sale, together with interest thereon at the rate of 1 per cent per month. The sum was received by the sheriff as the full amount due to the plaintiff in error on his bid, with interest. The plaintiff in error declined to accept the money, and now contends that the amount delivered to the sheriff for the redemption was not enough; and he also makes the claim that there was never any legal payment to the sheriff, even of the sum mentioned. The sheriff, after receiving the redemption money, executed a deed to the judgment creditor, Rhodes, and it is this deed which plaintiff seeks to have set aside.

At the time when the above-mentioned mortgage was executed, on October 16, 1893, the law in California provided that a judgment debtor or redemptioner might redeem the property from the purchaser at the foreclosure sale, at any time, within six months after the sale, on paying the purchaser the amount of his purchase money, with interest at 2 per cent a month thereon in addition, up to the time of redemption. On March 27, 1895, the legislature altered this statute, which was § 702 of the Code of Civil Procedure, by providing that redemption might be made upon the payment of the amount of the purchase money with one per cent a month as interest thereon, and on February 26, 1897, the same section was again amended by the legislature by extending the time for redemption to twelve instead of six months, while keeping the rate of interest at 1 per cent per month on the amount of the purchase price paid at the sale.

It will be noticed that both these amendments had been enacted, and existed as the law in regard to redemptions, at the time when the sale was made on June 13, 1898, upon the foreclosure of the mortgage.

Mr. J. S. Chapman for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. W. H. Anderson, E. C. Bower, and Anderson & Anderson for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice Peckham, after making the above statement of facts, delivered the opinion of the court:

The plaintiff in error contends that the several alterations of the law as it existed at the time when this mortgage was executed, regarding the time of redemption and the amount of interest payable to the purchaser at the foreclosure sale in order to redeem the land sold, impair the obligation of a contract as to all mortgages in existence before the alterations were made.

The first inquiry is, Whose contract was impaired by the alteration of the law? It is seen that the amount due on the mortgage in question at the time of the sale upon foreclosure was $6,782.49, and that the property sold for $9,500. That amount was paid by the purchaser to the sheriff, and it resulted in the payment of the mortgage debt, principal and interest, and the release of the land from the lien of the mortgage. Subsequently to that payment the mortgagee had no interest in further proceedings. Neither the mortgagee nor his assignee was the purchaser at the sale, and neither was in any manner injured by the alterations of the law in the respects mentioned. If, therefore, there was by this legislation an impairment of the obligation of a contract between the mortgagor and the mortgagee, which the latter could have taken advantage of if injured thereby, it is perfectly clear that he is not in the least injured when, by the sale under his mortgage, he realizes the full amount of his debt, principal, interest, and costs. What can he complain of under such circumstances, even conceding an abstract impairment of the obligation of his contract? Having realized and been paid in full the entire amount of money called for by his mortgage, he surely cannot be heard to complain that, nevertheless, the obligation of his contract was impaired. If not injured to the extent of a penny thereby, his abstract rights are unimportant.

We have lately held (therein following a long line of authorities) that a party insisting upon the invalidity of a statute, as violating any constitutional provision, must show that he may be injured by the unconstitutional law, before the courts will listen to his complaint. Tyler v. Registration Judges, 179 U. S. 405, 45 L. ed. 252, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 206; Turpin v. Lemon, 187 U. S. 51, 60, 47 L. ed. 70, 74, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 20. If, instead of showing any injury, the plaintiff shows that he cannot possibly be injured, he cannot, of course, ask the interference of the court. Therefore, if the mortgagee, or his assignee, were himself the plaintiff, and complaining that the obligation of his contract had been impaired by subsequent legislation, it is plain his complaint would be dismissed when it appeared that, notwithstanding the alleged subsequent illegal legislation, he suffered no injury, because he had proceeded with the foreclosure of his mortgage, and had been paid the full amount of his contract debt, interest, and costs. Under such circumstances the question becomes a moot one, and courts do not sit to decide that charater of question. American Book Co. v. Kansas, 193 U. S. 49, ante, p. 394, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 394; Jones v. Montague, decided April 25, 1904, 194 U. S. 147, ante, 611, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 611.

The question of the impairment of the mortgage contract, therefore, is not before us as between mortgagor and mortgagee.

We are of opinion that, as to the plaintiff in error, an independent purchaser at the foreclosure sale, having no connection whatever with the original contract between the mortgagor and mortgagee, his rights are to be determined by the law as it existed at the time he became a purchaser, unless, upon action taken by the mortgagee, the property had been sold under a decree providing that it should be sold without regard to the subsequent legislation which impaired his contract. The purchaser bought at the time when the law, as altered, was in operation, and, so far as he was concerned, it was a valid law; his contract was made under that law, and it is no business of his whether the original contract between the mortgagor and mortgagee was impaired or not by the subsequent legislation. He cannot be heard to contend that the original law applies to him, because a subsequent statute might be void as to some one else. The some one else might waive its illegality, or consent to its enforcement, or the question might have no importance because the property sold for enough to pay the debt, even though there was an abstract impairment of the obligation of his contract.

The purchaser must found his rights upon the law as it existed when he purchased. An alteration after he had purchased, to his prejudice, would be a different thing. Cooley, Const. Lim. 4th ed. 356. We agree that the law existing when a mortgage is made enters into, and becomes a part of, the contract; but that contract has nothing to do, so far as this question is concerned, with the contract of a purchaser at a foreclosure sale, having...