Case ID: ohio-cir-dec_10/html/0800-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

FORECLOSURE AGAINST PERSONS DECEASED.
    [Franklin Circuit Court,
    1898.]
    Citizens' Savings Bank v. Phoebe Ide.
    1. Foreclosure Against Deceased Mortgagor.
    An action to foreclose a mortgage given by a deceased mortgagor, making no claim for a" money judgment, is properly brought in the court of common pleas; the mortgage is not required to work out his rights through an administration in the probate court.
    2. CONSTRUCTION OIP STATUTES LONG ACQUIESCED IN. '
    Public policy requires that a construction placed by the courts and the profession upon a statute which has been accepted and acquiesced in for more than half a century, relating, in case at bar, to a construction that courts of common pleas have jurisdiction in foreclosure against deceased mortgagors, should not be disturbed.
    Appeal from the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin county.
    In this case plaintiff brought a suit in foreclosure, pure and simple, making no claim for a money judgment, in the common pleas court. The administrator demurred on the ground that the common pleas court had no jurisdiction, and contended that as in case of assignments, the rights of the mortgagee must be worked out through the administrator in the probate court. In the common pleas the demurrer was overruled, and a decree of foreclosure was entered, from which the administrator appealed to the circuit court.
   Per Curiam.

The question in this case is whether, where a person executes a mortgage on real estate and dies, the mortgagee can bring and maintain a suit, a foreclosure suit in the common pleas, making heirs, administrators, executors and lien holders defendants or is compelled to work out his rights through the executor or administrator in the probate court.

The circuit court holds that he can bring and maintain foreclosure in the common pleas. There is nothing in the claims of the administrator in this case which requires a construction of sec. 6108, Rev. Stat., different from what has been placed upon it by the courts and the profession for more than half a century. Public policy, if no other consideration requires that a construction so long accepted and acquiesced in should not be disturbed.