Court Opinion

ID: 6549422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-19 22:22:46.323676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:56:04.017626
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING. McCulloch, C. J. It is said that we decided this case on an issue not presented below, and not within the pleadings. That is a mistake. Appellants were plaintiffs below and sought to restrain foreclosure of the deed of trust under the power of sale contained therein. It was alleged that the debt was barred by the statute of limitations, and the burden of proof was on the plaintiffs to establish that fact. The issue in the case was, whether or not the debt was barred, and every fact necessary to establish the statute bar, either as to B. 0. Hughes or Mrs. Hughes, was within the pleadings. Plaintiffs’ case failed because it was not shown that the debt was barred as to both of the mortgagors. The record does not disclose what reasons were argued before the chancellor as grounds for granting or denying the injunction, nor does the record show the chancellor’s reasons for refusing to grant the injunction. He merely entered a decree dismissing the complaint for want of equity. If it be conceded, however, that the reasons upon which the chancellor based his decree are unsound, that affords no ground for reversing the decree, if, upon the whole record, it is correct. We try chancery cases here de novo, on the record made below, and render such decision as the chancellor should have rendered. If the correct result has been reached, but on the wrong ground, we affirm the decree. Plaintiffs chose the point of attack, and the record was made and closed before the case was presented to the chancellor. Upon that record we find that the correct decree was rendered, and it becomes our duty to affirm it. There remains the question, which we do not find it necessary to decide now, whether, even if the proof had developed the fact that Mrs. Hughes did not make the contract with reference to her separate estate so as to bind herself, the statute bar had attached against the foreclosure. The validity of her obligation as joint maker of the notes and as mortgagor is one question, and the bar of the statute of limitations is quite another. If there was a cause of action against her, it is unquestioned that it was not barred by the statute of limitations or by the statute of nonclaims, and since it is shown that she executed the notes and mortgage, it is a debatable question whether the foreclosure was barred even if it had been proved that Mrs. Hughes did not make the contract with reference to her separate estate. In any view of the case, upon the record presented, the decree is correct, so the petition for rehearing is denied.