Wynn v. First Nat. Bank Of Newnan

• Decision Date: 12 January 1933
• Docket Number: No. 8978.,8978.
• Parties: WYNN. v. FIRST NAT. BANK OF NEWNAN.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

176 Ga. 218

167 S.E. 513

WYNN.

v.FIRST NAT. BANK OF NEWNAN.

No. 8978.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Jan. 12, 1933.

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Error from Superior Court, Coweta County; L. B. Wyatt, Judge.

Equitable petition by Mrs. Louis G. Wynn against the First National Bank of Newnan.

General demurrer to petition was sustained, petition was dismissed, and plaintiff brings error.

Affirmed.

Mrs. Louise G. Wynn brought an equitable petition against the First National Bank of Newnan, a bank organized under the laws of the United States, to impress an implied trust on certain described realty and personalty. The petition as amended alleged in substance the following: In the year 1914 petitioner owned and was in possession of 680 acres of land described, adjacent to the city of New-nan, Ga. On February 18, 1914, she procured a loan of $12,000 from the John Hancock Life Insurance Company, and to secure the loan executed a deed to the property. From time to time she would borrow money from the defendant bank, and on January 8, 1921, in order to secure the defendant for any money that she then owed it, or might thereafter owe it, she transferred to it her bond for title from the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company to her, binding it to reconvey the land upon payment of the loan from the insurance company to her. She had reduced this loan to $10,000. Several years ago she decided, with the approval of her banker, the defendant, to set out 10, 000 peach trees on the land, and to this end she borrowed from the bank a sum of money sufficient for this purpose, and also to purchase the necessary farm tools with which to cultivate the land, including a tractor, plows, harrows, and spraying apparatus, so that on January 1, 1927, she was indebted to the bank in the sum of approximately $15,000, for which the bank held her notes secured by the bond for title referred to, and a mortgage on her live stock, crops, etc. She derived her living from the operation of the farm, amounting approximately to $1,800 a year. The orchard was planted on 100 acres of the land, and the land and improvements thereon are estimated by the plaintiff to be worth $71,000; the remainder of the land, 580 acres, she values at $29,030. On January 1, 1927, the value of the entire property, including personalty situated thereon, was $111,950. About January 1, 1927, the defendant bank, through its agent, Jack Powell, approached the defendant and suggested that if she would turn her property over to the bank and allow the bank to manage the property, securing her living expenses amounting to approximately $1,800 a year, the bank would handle the property and credit the rents, issues, and profits less taxes thereon, that it would take care of the indebtedness against the property and within a few years would work the place out of debt; and Jack Powell then and there stated to the plaintiff that he would prepare a paper reducing the agreement on her part to writing. She had known Jack Powell for a number of years; she esteemed him a friend, as he was her banker and her confidential business adviser a man whom she respected and in whom she had the utmost faith and confidence. For the past twenty years she and Powell have been in constant social and business contact, and all of her business with the bank has been conducted personally with Powell, upon whom she relied for financial advice. She accepted his word for the amount of her indebtedness to the bank at the end of each year. She has signed a number of notes and other papers without question, on the advice and oral statement of Powell as to their contents and their import. She signed the paper prepared by Powell, fully believing at the time that she was signing a paper that would carry out the idea suggested by Powell and to which she had agreed. She now finds that the paper she executed is an unconditional warranty deed in fee simple to her entire real estate, subject to the rights of the insurance company. At the same time she delivered to the bank her entire property, being the complete complement for the operation of the farm and peach orchard, which the defendant accepted, as she believed, in the spirit in which she turned it over, for the operation of the farm and orchard for her benefit and credit. She removed from the property, and from that date she has received nothing of the rents, issues, and profits thereof. The bank paid off the loan to the insurance company on December 26, 1928, in pursuance of the agreement made with her to care for the property until she was able to pay the money or until it was realized from the rents, issues, and profits of the property. During the years 1927 and 1928 the farm and orchard produced about enough to meet the expenses of operation, including the taxes and upkeep of the premises. In 1929 the defendant received a net profit of at least $16,000 from the proceeds of the peach crop, and a sufficient sum from other crops to meet the expenses of the entire property, including repairs and...