Court Opinion

ID: 9637771
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:19:31.390794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:00.285363
License: Public Domain

STONE, Circuit Judge (dissenting).
I am very much impressed with the reasoning in the opinion of Judge LEWIS and if this were a question of first impression I would agree with his conclusions. . However, I cannot escape the conviction that this very matter has been ruled by the Supreme Court and, so believing, I have no choice and must accept that rule, as I understand it.
In Union Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Hanford, 143 U. S. 187, at page 190, 12 S. Ct. 437, 438 (36'L. Ed. 118), the Supreme Court held, in a similar ease, that:
“The question whether the remedy of the mortgagee against the grantee is at law and in his own right, or in equity and in the right of the mortgagor only, is, as was adjudged in Willard v. Wood, above cited, to be determined by the law of the place where the suit is brought.”
Earlier opinions of that court to the same effect are Keller v. Ashford, 133 U. S. 610, 10 S. Ct. 494, 33 L. Ed. 667, and Willard v. Wood, 135 U. S. 309, 10 S. Ct. 831, 34 L. Ed. 210. Also, see Willard v. Wood, 164 U. S. 502, 518, 525, 17 S. Ct. 176, 41 L. Ed. 531. Johns v. Wilson, 180 U. S. 440, 447, 448, 21 S. Ct. 445, 45 L. Ed. 613; Central Electric Co. v. Sprague Electric Co. (C. C. A.) 120 F. 925, 926 (7th Circuit); Adams v. Shirk (C. C. A.) 105 F. 659, 661 (7th Circuit); and Gibson v. Victor Talking Machine Co., 232 F. 225 (New Jersey District Court, where Judge Haight reviews the decisions and discusses the matter fully) and Pennsylvania Steel Co. v. New York City Railway Co. (C. C.) 189 F. 661, 666 (Circuit Court, New York).
The holding of the Kansas State Supreme Court is that the liability of a purchaser under an assumption contract, such as contained in this deed to defendants, occupies the position of a surety and that where his principal is under no legal obligation to pay the debt, the surety cannot be held. Colorado Savings Bank v. Bales, 101 Kan. 100, 165 P. 843.
Therefore, thinking that the above decisions sustain the trial court in the judgment entered, I think that such judgment should be affirmed.