Southern Indiana Loan & Sav. Inst. v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 18 December 1908
• Docket Number: No. 6,490.,6,490.
• Citation: 42 Ind.App. 653,86 N.E. 490
• Parties: SOUTHERN INDIANA LOAN & SAVINGS INST. v. ROBERTS et al.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

42 Ind.App. 653

86 N.E. 490

SOUTHERN INDIANA LOAN & SAVINGS INST.

v.ROBERTS et al.

No. 6,490.

Appellate Court of Indiana, Division No. 2.

Dec. 18, 1908.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Spencer County; Roscoe Kiper, Judge.

Action by the Southern Indiana Loan & Savings Institution against John J. Roberts and others. Judgment for plaintiff for less than the relief demanded, and it appeals. Affirmed.F. A. Henning, Jr., for appellant. Ralph E. Roberts, for appellees.

RABB, J.

The appellant brought this suit in the court below against the appellees, seeking to foreclose a mortgage on certain real estate described, and also to recover a personal judgment against the appellees, William M. Smith and Walter Jones, who are alleged to have been subsequent grantees from Roberts of the premises mortgaged. The appellee Roberts suffered a default. The appellees, Smith and Jones, answered in four paragraphs. Appellant's demurrer to the first, third, and fourth were overruled, and exception reserved, a reply filed, cause submitted to a jury for trial upon the issues between appellant and Smith and Jones; a verdict being returned in favor of Smith and Jones. Appellant's motion for a new trial was overruled, and judgment of foreclosure was rendered in favor of appellant for the amount due on the debt against all the parties, and a personal judgment denied appellant as against Smith and Jones, and judgment rendered in their favor for costs. From this judgment an appeal is taken to this court, and errors assigned upon the overruling of appellant's demurrer to the first, second, and third paragraphs of the answer of Jones and Smith, and appellant's motion for a new trial as against them.

The theory upon which appellant claims a right to a personal judgment against Smith and Jones is that they are subsequent purchasers of the property, and that they assumed the payment of the mortgage upon the premises. The statute of frauds provides that no action shall be brought to charge any person upon any special promise to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriage of another, unless the promise, contract, or agreement or some memoranda thereof shall be in writing and signed by the party to be charged therewith. The mortgage debt which appellant seeks to charge the appellees Smith and Jones with in this action was not primarily their debt. It was the debt of Roberts, and, in order to make a case against them of personal liability for this debt of Roberts, such facts must be averred in the complaint and proved upon the trial as take the case out of the operation of this statute, and render this debt the debt of Jones and Smith. It is the well-settled law that where a conveyance of land is made, and the grantee assumes to pay, as a part of the consideration for the conveyance, a mortgage debt due from the grantor, that the debt thus assumed to be paid is not the debt of a third person within the meaning of the statute of frauds, but becomes the debt of the grantee, and he is personally liable upon his contract, whether it be in writing or expressed orally. This doctrine is announced by the Supreme Court in the case of McDill v. Gunn, 43 Ind. 315, and is followed by a long line of decided cases in this state. It is not because the transaction relates to real estate that the contract to pay the mortgage debt is taken out of the operation of the statute of frauds, but because the promisor has by his contract with the grantor of the land agreed to pay part of the price of the land, which is his obligation, to the mortgagee. The fact that the party to whom he has thus agreed to pay part of the purchase price of the land happens to be a creditor of the seller is a matter of no controlling importance. It is his own debt he thus contracts to pay. As we understand the rule, a valid promise to pay another's debt cannot be made directly with the creditor, even though founded on a valuable consideration, unless it is in writing. It must both be founded on a valuable consideration, and be in writing, when made directly with the creditor; otherwise it is...