Stallings v. Lane

• Decision Date: 28 February 1883
• Citation: 88 N.C. 214
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: J. N. STALLINGS, Adm'r, v. WILLIAM LANE and others.

88 N.C. 214

J. N. STALLINGS, Adm'r,

v.WILLIAM LANE and others.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

February Term, 1883.

CIVIL ACTION tried at July Special Term, 1882, of DUPLIN Superior Court, before Gilliam J.

Defendant appealed.

No counsel for plaintiff.

Mr. H. R. Kornegay, for defendants .

SMITH, C. J.

On January 2d, 1868, the defendant rented from J. N. Stallings and Joel Loftin (to whom joint letters of administration on the estate of Nancy Sollis were issued) a tract of arable land of the intestate for that year, and at the same time executed his note under seal with the other defendants as sureties, payable to them in their representative capacity at six months, for articles of personal property bought at the administration sale, in the sum of $245.96. The value of the note was aftewards reduced by three successive partial payments to the administrator, Loftin, indorsed thereon, as follows: One on June 3d, 1868, $19.41; on January 29th, 1869, $111.33, and on April 15th, 1870, $97.62.

On August 17th, 1868, the debtor, Lane, executed a deed of mortgage to the said administrators, reciting his indebtedness on said note and on another for $95.55, due on January 1st, 1869, with the same sureties, conveying “his right, title and interest in the crop raised upon the land rented” as aforesaid, and ““a cart,” to secure and provide for the payment of the said notes, with a concluding clause in these words: “And the said party of the first part (Lane) agrees to hold the same for the payment of the said notes as agent of said parties of the second part,” the mortgagees.

Upon the trial of the issues it was in proof that one Bason, whose daughter Lane had married, occupied and cultivated the farm together during the year 1868, the former furnishing two mules, his own and his childrens' labor; and the latter (Lane) his own personal services in making the crop.

Evidence was also introduced tending to show that Loftin, since deceased, received part of the crop of cotton raised on the premises in 1869, which he sold and applied the proceeds as an indorsed credit upon the bonds; that Lane's share of the corn crop of 1868 passed into Loftin's possession and was by him advanced to Lane to make the crop of 1869, under an arrangement that it was to be paid therefrom.

There was no direct proof of the terms on which Lane and Bason farmed during the year, but the value of the entire crop was sufficient to discharge the secured debts.

The defendant contended that the taking the assignment from Lane of his interest in the crop, then growing and thereafter to be gathered, involved an implied contract to extend the time of payment beyond that fixed in the note, and discharged the sureties from further liability for the debt; and he asked these directions to be given to the jury:

1. The entire crop grown on the land in 1868 passed under the defendant's mortgage to the administrators, and as it ought to have been received and applied by them to the debts, and if so applied would have paid them in full, the omission of the mortgagees to do so and its consequent loss operate as an exoneration of the sureties.

2. There is no evidence that Bason had any vested interest in the crop, or was entitled to any share thereof??

The instructions were refused, and the court charged:

1. That there was evidence, though not direct and positive, tending to show that the farm was cultivated in 1868 on shares, taken in connection with a declaration of Loftin, called out by the defendant, “that he (Loftin) had received Lane's part of the crop of cotton and credited it on his note,” and it was for the jury to ascertain what shares each was to have in the product of the farm.

2. If the crop of 1868 was raised by the joint labor of the parties under the agreement entered into before the making of the assignment by which they became croppers, then the deed of Lane only conveyed his share and interest therein.

The court further held that the acceptance of the mortgage as a further security for the debts and upon the terms therein contained, did not imply a contract to defer payment, and did not, in law, relieve the sureties from their obligation.

The correctness of these rulings are before us on the appeal.

The exceptions to the refusal of the court to give the directions asked, and to the directions given, we think have no support in the evidence heard. There was evidence of the relations of the parties who farmed together, and the contributions of each towards the tillage of the land and making the crop, from which, in the light of the declaration brought out, the jury were fully warranted in arriving at the conclusion that the crop was to be divided and perhaps in equal proportions.

Nor is the construction, put upon the description of the property contained in the mortgage, obnoxious to just criticism. “The right, title and interest in the crop raised” must be that which the mortgagor himself had and could...