Case Title: Shipp v. First Ala. Bank of Gadsden, NA

Citation: 473 So. 2d 1014

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1985-05-31T00:00:00Z

Document:
473 So. 2d 1014 (1985)
David SHIPP
v.
FIRST ALABAMA BANK OF GADSDEN, N.A., A National Banking Association.
83-1308.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 31, 1985.
Rehearing Denied July 19, 1985.
*1015 F.J. Allen, II, Boaz, for appellant.
Jack W. Torbert, Jr., for Torbert and Torbert, Gadsden, for appellee.
BEATTY, Justice.
Appeal by David Shipp from summary judgment in favor of First Alabama Bank of Gadsden. We affirm.
First Alabama Bank of Gadsden (Bank) brought this action against Shipp for money owed the Bank upon two promissory notes and Shipp's separate continuing guaranty agreement signed by him on December 10, 1976. Under that guaranty, Shipp agreed to guarantee the indebtedness of Heritage Leasing, Inc., d/b/a Budget Rent-A-Car, up to the amount of $17,700. Shipp signed this guaranty, "David Shipp, V.P.," and, in his answers to interrogatories later filed, stated that he was an officer of the corporation.
The Bank's complaint, as amended, contained the following two counts:
After various pleadings were filed by both sides, and the addition of a third-party complaint by Shipp against Heritage Leasing, Inc., and others, the Bank moved for summary judgment, supported by the pleadings, a deposition of the defendant, and the affidavits of Ollie W. Nabors, Buford Copeland, and J. Richard Carr. These affidavits, with exhibits, established that in 1976, before the execution of the notes in question, David Shipp executed a continuing guaranty to the Bank under which he unconditionally guaranteed and promised the Bank all indebtedness of Heritage Leasing, Inc., d/b/a Budget Rent-A-Car, up to $17,700.00. It was also shown that on October 17, 1977, Budget Rent-A-Car and Shipp executed a promissory note payable to the Bank in the amount of $29,221.48. The reverse side of this note also contained an unconditional guarantee to pay the indebtedness under that note, together with "reasonable costs and an attorney's fee of 15% of the unpaid debt." Another promissory note was executed on May 4, 1978, by Heritage Leasing, Inc., and Shipp in the amount of $11,690.11. Shipp signed both of these notes on their faces as "David Shipp."
The Nabors affidavits were by the Bank's chief executive officer. One of these recited:
The other Nabors affidavit read as follows:
The affidavit of Buford Copeland, a practicing attorney in Etowah County, established that on April 20, 1984, the balance of one of the promissory notes was $11,164.10, and that a reasonable attorney's fee for the collection of that note was $1,674.61. As to the other note, with a balance due of $8,105.34 as of April 20, 1984, in his opinion, a reasonable attorney's fee was $1,215.80. The affidavit of J. Richard Carr, another practicing attorney in Etowah County, corroborated these as reasonable attorney's fees.
In opposition to the Bank's motion for summary judgment, Shipp filed an affidavit in which he stated that "it was always the intention that this was a corporate debt and I never did understand that I would be personally liable." He also said that "I was never informed by the bank of the status of the loan until many months after it was in total default and all the security had been disposed of by third parties with the consent and collusion of the bank." Elsewhere in his answer he alluded to certain defenses which would be made against the Bank's claims.
After a hearing, the trial court granted the following summary judgment, made final by an order under Rule 54(b), A.R. Civ.P.:
Defendant Shipp's motion for a new trial was overruled, and he appeals.
Rule 56(e), A.R.Civ.P., provides:
The Bank had established by affidavit and documentary evidence that the debts sued upon were due and that David Shipp had personally guaranteed one of the notes and had another personal guaranty outstanding for other indebtedness up to $17,700.00 for principal. Did Shipp's affidavit comply with Rule 56(e)? We think not. Shipp's affidavit contains vague and general assertions of the kind this Court criticized in Sartino v. First Alabama Bank of Birmingham, 435 So. 2d 39 (Ala. 1983), and Real Coal, Inc. v. Thompson Tractor Co., 379 So. 2d 1249 (Ala.1980). Like the guarantor in Sartino, Shipp did not deny executing the respective guaranty agreements, but generally referred to defenses which he would raise. Under Sartino *1018 and Whatley v. Cardinal Pest Control, 388 So. 2d 529 (Ala.1980), Shipp has left the Bank's evidence uncontroverted.
The amount of the judgment against Shipp on the first note, to which Shipp's separate personal guaranty was applicable, was uncontroverted. The amount of the judgment on the second note was well within Shipp's separate guaranty of indebtedness up to $17,700.00 principal. Shipp's signature of that guaranty, "David Shipp, V.P.," did not prevent a personal obligation from attaching to Shipp. That guaranty does not name any representative, nor does it show that Shipp was signing in a representative capacity. Terms such as that used by Shipp, i.e., "V.P.," without more, are "descriptio personae," deemed merely descriptive of the person, and do not change the capacity in which he signs. Cf. Phenix Girard Bank v. Cannon, 414 So. 2d 926 (Ala.1982); Code of 1975, § 7-3-403; and Mount v. Baptist Hospital of Gadsden, Inc., 43 Ala.App. 423, 191 So. 2d 262 (1966).
Let the judgment be affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
TORBERT, C.J., and MADDOX, JONES and SHORES, JJ., concur.