Court Opinion

ID: 5435703
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-08 17:54:03.140447+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:31:49.393766
License: Public Domain

Per Rhodes, J., concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment affirming the order of the Probate Court; and I agree with the Chief Justice in the opinion that a promissory note, executed by the deceased in his lifetime, whether it is secured by a mortgage or not, is a claim against the estate; but, in my opinion, the mortgage, which is but a security for the payment of the note—a mere incident to the debt—is not, in any just sense, a claim against the estate to be presented for payment.
The mortgage debt is required to be presented for payment, and when paid either by the administrator or on proceedings to foreclose the mortgage, it operates as a satisfaction—not *356payment—of the mortgage. The mortgage or an abstract thereof may be required to be filed in the Probate Court with the debt, for the purpose of enabling the Court to make the proper order for the payment of the claims, and give the requisite preference to liens upon any of the assets of the estate. The statute as amended in 1861 (Probate Act, Sec. 133) seems to recognize the distinction between a claim and its security, for it says: “ If the claim or any part thereof be secured by a mortgage or other lien, such mortgage or other evidence of lien shall be attached to the claim and filed therewith, unless the same be recorded,” etc.
The provisions of this section may at first view seem to conflict with section one hundred and eighty-six, where provision is made for the appropriation of the proceeds of the sale of “ land subject to any mortgage or other lien, which is a valid - claim against the estate of the deceased,” but the apparent conflict vanishes when it is remembered that a mortgage is not, in fact, a debt against the estate. The meaning and evident intent of the Legislature was to provide for the appropriation of the purchase money arising from the sale of “lands subject to any mortgage or other lien [given to secure the payment of a debt] which is a valid claim against the estate of the deceased,” etc. It is further provided in the section that the money arising from the sale of the land, after the payment of the expenses, shall be first applied to the payment of the mortgage or lien, meaning, of course, the debt, the claim secured by the mortgage or other lien.
The judgment affirming the order of the Probate Court, directing that the note should bear interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum from the date of the letters of administration, does not conflict with the opinion of the Court in Fallon v. Butler, 21 Cal. 24, which holds that a mortgage is not a claim in the sense in which that term is employed in the Probate Act. The note was filed as a claim against the estate, and payment was sought from the administrator out of the general assets of the estate, and as the note was made after the passage of the amendments of 1861, and the estate was *357insolvent, the note must be subject to the same rule, in respect to the interest to be paid, as other notes filed as claims, which are to be paid by the administrator in due course of administration. Although such is the law in respect to the note and the interest to be paid, in case the estate is insolvent, I see no inconsistency in holding at the same time that the mortgage is not a claim against the estate, and that an action may be brought in the District Court for the enforcement of the mortgage lien by a foreclosure and a sale of the premises for the payment of the debt and interest, but what rate of interest, I do not undertake to determine.