Case Name: MASON v. GREEN
Court: Texas Courts of Civil Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1920-12-16
Citations: 226 S.W. 829
Docket Number: No. 2339
Parties: MASON v. GREEN.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter
Volume: 226
Pages: 829–832

Head Matter:
MASON v. GREEN.
(No. 2339.)
(Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Texarkana.
Dec. 16, 1920.)
1. Set-off and counterclaim &wkey;>!5 — Set-off against damages allowed plaintiff for conversion cannot be allowed.
Under Rev. St. art. 1329, prohibiting set-off in suit founded on tort, it was error for the court, in an action for conversion of property exempt from forced sale to a family, .to set off against damages allowed to plaintiff a debt due by plaintiff to defendant.
2. Chattel mortgages <&wkey;30 — Chattel mortgagee’s wife need not join unless mortgage is to loan broker.
Acts 34th Leg. (1915), c. 28, § 11 (Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1918, art. 6171j), making chattel mortgage on household furniture executed by husband without the wife’s joining therein void, held applicable only to chattel mortgages given loan brokers in view of sections 1, 10 (articles 6171a, 6171i).
3. Chattel mortgages &wkey;>30 — Purchase-money mortgage on household furniture without wife’s consent is valid.
Acts 34th Leg. (1915), c. 28, § 11 (Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1918, art. 6171j), making a chattel mortgage on household furniture executed by a husband without the wife’s consent void, held inapplicable to a mortgage securing the purchase price of household furniture.
4. Exemptions &wkey;>63 — Mortgage on exempt property to secure advances by landlord valid.
Vernon’s Sayles’ Ann. Civ. St. 1914, art. 3793, providing that a debt for rents and advances made by the landlord to a tenant may be secured by a loan on exempt personal property, held not repealed by Acts 34th Leg. (1915), c. 28, § 11 (Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1918, art. 6171j), making a. chattel mortgage on furniture executed by the husband without the wife’s consent void; the latter statute being applicable only to mortgages to loan brokers.
5. Husband and wife <&wkey;267(4) — Husband may' execute mortgage on community property without wife joining therein.
That the husband alone signed chattel mortgage on household goods did not make the mortgage void on the ground that it was a mortgage of the community property, since under Vernon’s Sayles’ Ann. Civ. St. 1914, art. 4622, the husband alone may dispose of the community property.
Hodges, J., dissenting.
Appeal from District Court, Lamar County ; A. P. Dohoney, Judge.
Suit by Jim Mason against E. P. Green, in which defendant filed a cross-bill. Judgment for defendant on his cross-bill, and plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed as reformed.
The appellant sued the appellee for damages for the alleged conversion of certain personal property consisting of 3 beds, 2 springs, 1 chiffonier, sewing machine, cookstove, rocking-chair, trunk, kitchen safe, 4 chairs, 2 tables, wash pots, tubs and hoard, 20 quilts, 3 mattresses, 10 sheets, feather bed, pillows, flat irons, 75 jars of fruit, piano, kitchen cabinet, wearing apparel, and 5 hogs. The defendant answered by general denial, and in a cross-bill alleged that the plaintiff had executed a promissory note payable to the appellee and had secured same by a chattel mortgage covering, am'ong other things, all the articles mentioned in the original petition of the plaintiff, and had placed the» appellee in possession of the same, and prayed for judgment for the debt and for a foreclosure of the chattel mortgage lien on the property. The appellant by a supplemental petition demurred and excepted to the cross-bill, and answered that at the time of the execution of the chattel mortgage he was a married man living with his wife, and the head of a household. The case was tried before the court without a jury.
The evidence shows'that in the year 1919 . appellant with his wife and five children moved onto the appellee’s farm to make a crop. In order to obtain supplies and advances for the year the appellant executed a note for $600 payable to appellee on October 1, 1919, and at the same time executed a chattel mortgage to secure the payment of the note on the following:
“All my crop consisting of 30 acres of cotton and 8 acres of corn, 3 horses, 1 wagon, harness, 1 stalk cutter, 2 cultivators, 1 better, 12 sweeps, 1 planter, 1 piano (subject to another note), 1 sow and increase, all household furniture.”
Appellant’s wife did not sign her name to the mortgage, and did not ¿cknowledge the same. In September the appellant and his family left the farm, as he says, to go elsewhere to pick cotton, intending to be away only temporarily. And the testimony of appellant goes to show that while he was away the appellee took and appropriated the personal property sued for, claiming it as payment on the note. The testimony of the ap-pellee, though, goes to show that the appellant when he left the place left the property in suit in the possession of appellee, and that he has merely held the same for him during that time. The cotton, corn, horses, implements, and hogs mentioned in the mortgage are not involved in the suit, having before suit been by the parties applied on the mortgage debt. It is shown by the evidence that part of the property in suit is “household furniture,” and under the terms of the chattel mortgage, and the remaining part, in point of fact, is not household furniture and is not embraced in the terms of the mortgage, but is property exempt under the law. '
The court made a finding that the following property was under the terms of and subject to the chattel mortgage, viz., sewing machine, three beds, two bedsprings, four chairs, a rocking-chair, chiffonier, two tables, and a piano, and that the mortgage lien should be foreclosed thereon, and that the appellee had converted the property not under mortgage of the value of $184. The evidence supports the findings of the court.
Judgment was entered in favor of the ap-pellee on his cross-bill for the balance due on the note less the credit of $184 damages allowed the plaintiff, and a foreclosure of the thattel mortgage lien on the sewing machine, three beds, two bedsprings, four chairs, rocking-chair, chiffonier, two tables, and piano.
L. L. James and T. E. McMillan, both of Cooper, for appellant.
Baughn & Johnson, of Paris, for appellee.

Opinion:
BEVY, J.
(after stating the facts as above). The appellant contends, under proper assignments of error, that the court erred (1) in crediting the debt adjudged due the defendant by the plaintiff on the note with the amount of damages awarded the plaintiff against the defendant for conversion of exempt property, and (2) in foreclosing the chattel mortgage lien on the property stated in the judgment. The entire property in controversy in the suit is property exempt from forced sale to a family. Some of this property was under the terms of the mortgage as "household furniture," and the rest of the property was not covered by the mortgage. The court found that the property not covered by the mortgage was taken and converted, and he allowed the plaintiff damages therefor. The statute expressly provides that if the plaintiff's suit be founded on a tort, as here, the defendant shall not be permitted to set off any debt due him by the plaintiff. Article 1329, R. S. And the courts especially declined to allow a set-off against claims arising out of exempt property. Craddock v. Goodwin, 54 Tex. 578; Cone v. Lewis, 64 Tex. 331; 24 R. C. L. p. 815, § 21. The purpose and spirit of the exemption law is protection of the exempt property from all manner of coercive process of the law. And to allow a set-off would result in a palpable evasion of the law. This assignment of error is sustained.
The contention that the chattel mortgage was void and should not have been foreclosed because the wife did not sign and acknowledge same is predicated upon article 6171j, Vernon's Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1918. The caption of that act (Acts General Laws 1915, p. 48), as well as the entire law (Vernon's Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1918, arts. 6171a-6171Z) refers and was intended to apply only to a "loan broker," defined in section 1 (article 6171a) as:
"A 'loan broker' is a person, firm or corporation who pursues the business of lending money upon interest and taking as security for the payment of sudh loan and interest an assignment of wages, or an assignment of wages with power of attorney to collect the same or other order for unpaid chattel mortgage or bill of sale upon household or kitchen furniture."
It is clearly an act undertaking to regulate the business of a loan- broker. Section 11, which té the section relied on by appellant, does make void, it is true, any "chattel mortgage upon the household and kitchen furniture of a married man" unless the wife consents to the chattel mortgage by signing with her husband and separately acknowledging the sama But this section, in the light of the preceding section 10 and the other sections and the caption of the act, refers to and applies only, we .think, to a chattel mortgage given to a "loan broker." To make void a mortgage on household and kitchen furniture that is not executed by both, the husband and the wife is merely a mode or means of regulating "the business," as defined in section 1, "of lending money upon interest and taking as security for the payment of such loan and interest chattel mortgage upon household or kitchen furniture." And neither does the act undertake, expressly or by implication, to repeal any other existing statute pertaining to the giving of a chattel mortgage to per sons not a "loan broker." We have heretofore held, and still adhere to that ruling, that this act is inapplicable to a mortgage securing the purchase price of household furniture sold. Strickland v. Dobbs, 200 S. W. 1125. Hence, as the act in question is applicable only to a "loan broker," article '3793, Vernon's Sayles' Civil Statutes (1914), would not be repealed. This article provides that a debt for rents and advances made by a landlord to the tenant may be secured by a lien on exempt personal property, as here. And in Rose v. Martin, 33 S. W. 284, it has been held that a chattel mortgage given by the owner on personal property exempt from forced sale is valid. The fact, then, that the husband alone signed the mortgage would not make, it void, as community property, as here, may be disposed of by the husband only. Article 4622, Vernon's Sayles' Civ. Stat. Therefore we think the court did not err in foreclosing the chattel mortgage.
We have considered the other assignments, and think they should be overruled as presenting no reversible error.
The judgment is so far reformed as to allow the appellant judgment for his damages of $184 and interest without crediting it on the amount of indebtedness adjudged due the appellee by appellant, and as so reformed to be in all things affirmed, the appellee to pay costs of appeal.
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