Court Opinion

ID: 9834176
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:21:51.111862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:12.453419
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In his motion for rehearing appellant assails only that portion of the original opinion disposing of this case in which it is held that the presumption in favor of the regularity in the posting of the notices of sale by the trustee had not been overcome by the proof offered. In cases like the present, the legal presumption is that the notices were posted in some manner sufficient to sustain the validity of the sale; that is, in some form and by some method and agency within the scope and duty required of the trustee by the terms of the deed of trust. The presumption is not that the trustee in person performed the manual act of putting up the notices, or that it was done by another under his direction and in his presence, unless that manner of performing the duty was required of him by the instrument under which he purported to act. We have expressed the opinion that this strictness of conduct in posting notices was not required, and we see no reason now why we should recede from that conclusion. If this view be correct, then when the trustee’s deed was offered in evidence in this case on the trial below the controversy assumed this attitude: By the introduction of the trustee’s deed the plaintiff established prima facie the fact that the notices had been regularly posted in some form and by some method sufficient to sustain the validity of the trustee’s sale. This presumption was not inseparably tied to any particular method of posting, or that it was done by the manual acts of any particular party in putting the notices at the places designated. When the testimony of the trustee was introduced, this negatived the fact that he in person posted two of the three notices required, but it showed that he had made provision for having those two posted at designated places by two public officials of the county. If his directions were carried out, the sale subsequently made by him was, we think, unquestionably valid. Unless we can say that the inference to be drawn from the testimony of R. P. Dorough, the trustee, is inconsistent with the conclusion that his directions were carried out, or that it left the matter in such doubt as to furnish no basis for any reasonable inference in regard to the matter, we cannot say that the court’s conclusions upon that issue are unsupported by the facts. Had the trial court made a contrary finding, a different question would have been presented upon the same state of facts.
The motion is overruled. •