Mollie Dupree v. Mansur

• Citation: 29 S.Ct. 548,214 U.S. 161,53 L.Ed. 950
• Decision Date: 17 May 1909
• Docket Number: No. 124,124
• Parties: MOLLIE E. DUPREE and William E. Dupree, Petitioner, v. C. W. MANSUR
• Court: United States Supreme Court

214 U.S. 161

29 S.Ct. 548

53 L.Ed. 950

MOLLIE E. DUPREE and William E. Dupree, Petitioner,

v C. W. MANSUR.

No. 124.

Argued April 6, 7, 1909.

Decided May 17, 1909.

Messrs. J. J. Darlington and Sleeper & Kendall for petitioners.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 161-163 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Hannis Taylor and J. M. McCormick for respondent.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 163-164 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a bill brought by the petitioner to quiet title to a lot of land in Waco, Texas. A cross bill was filed by the respondent to establish and foreclose a vendor's lien and mortgage upon the same land. The facts, so far as necessary to a decision, are these. One Bailey conveyed one undivided half of the land in question to William E. Dupree, partly in consideration of five notes, for $900 each, maturing in one, two, three, four and five years respectively, from December 31, 1894, the date of the conveyance. By the words of the deed, 'the vendor's lien is hereby reserved on the said property to secure the above-described notes.' On the same date Dupree made a mortgage in the form of a trust deed of one undivided half of the premises to secure the same notes. These deeds were recorded the next year, and later Dupree conveyed the land to his wife, whose title is not assailed except as subject to the lien for the notes. Then Dupree conveyed other property in trust for creditors in three classes, in the first of which was included one Slayden in respect of the above-mentioned notes, of four of which he had become the holder. Forthwith certain creditors brought a bill to get the benefit of other securities held by one of the preferred creditors, and for a receiver. Neither the petitioner nor Slayden were made parties, nor was this property mentioned in the bill. On the same day another similar bill was brought by W. B. Belknap & Company, unsecured creditors, in which Slayden was one of the defendants. The petitioner also was joined in respect of a vendor's lien on other land, which she was alleged fraudulently to assert. It was ordered that on the trial the two suits should be consolidated, the same person having been appointed receiver in each. Then Slayden answered and intervened for three of the notes, one having been paid. By the final decree, made on June 30, 1897, it was decided that the plaintiffs in the Belknap bill, to which the petitioner was a party, take nothing by their bill; but, among many other things, the claim of Slayden on his intervention was allowed, it was adjudged that he recover the amount of Dupree, and be paid out of funds in the hands of the court, and it was ordered that thereupon he should indorse the notes, described as secured by vendor's lien on the land in question, to the receiver, without recourse, and that the receiver should sell them and pay the net proceeds into court, to be applied with the other funds. The decree was carried out and the notes were sold to one Duke for $300. He afterwards sold them to Mansur, the respondent, who attempted by proceedings unnecessary to state to have the land sold. Then this bill was filed. The circuit court granted an injunction. This decree was reversed, and a decree of foreclosure in favor of the respondent ordered by the circuit court of appeals.

The circuit court of appeals proceeded upon the ground that the decree was conclusive upon the petitioner, though for what purposes or with what results is not entirely elear and is not necessary to inquire. We shall assume that the purchaser took the notes as unpaid, with the vendor's lien attached to the same extent as if Slayden had sold them without coming into court. That certainly is the most that can be attributed to the decree. But since the date of that decree, and before the date of the bill, the notes have been barred by the Texas statute of limitations. It is established law in Texas that, when a debt is barred, an action to foreclose a lien or mortgage given as security for it is barred also. Hale v. Baker, 60 Tex. 217; Goldfrank v. Young, 64 Tex. 432, 434; Stephens v. Mathews, ...