Court Opinion

ID: 9692640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:59:09.936505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:35.811824
License: Public Domain

COYNE, Justice
(concurring specially).
Although I readily concur in the conclusion reached by the majority — that a mortgagor must cure the default which prompted foreclosure by bringing it into a condition current as of the time of reinstatement — I am of the opinion that Minn.Stat. § 580.30 (1988) is susceptible of no more than the single, clear and unambiguous interpretation which this court adopted in Davis v. Davis, 293 Minn. 44, 46-47, 196 N.W.2d 473, 474-75 (1972).
The mortgagee in the present case, like the mortgagee in Davis, exercised its option to accelerate the principal balance of $57,014.61, declaring the entire sum due and payable immediately. The general rule is that exercise of the acceleration option brings the mortgage to maturity for all purposes so that neither party can thereafter treat the mortgage as not matured without the consent of the other. In Davis we recognized that Minn.Stat. § 580.30 had been enacted to relieve the mortgagor of the obligation to satisfy the mortgage in its entirety in order to retain the mortgagor’s interest in the mortgaged property, and we held that the statute permits the mortgage to be “reinstated” by the payment of a lesser sum:
We are of the opinion and hold that the use of the words “actually due” and “the default actually existing” was intended by the legislature to permit reinstatement by payment of only what was delinquent, plus the costs set out in the statute, without requiring the accelerated principal to be tendered.
Davis, 293 Minn. at 46-47, 196 N.W.2d at 474-75.
The necessity of a tender sufficient to bring the mortgage into a current condition as of the date of tender appears to have been accepted without question for approximately 65 years — no doubt because a mortgage can be “fully reinstated” only if the delinquency which allowed acceleration of the principal balance be fully cured. “Reinstate” means “to restore to a proper condition: replace in an original or equivalent state.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1915 (1981). It cannot be said, it seems to me, that a mortgage has been restored to a proper condition or that it has been replaced in its original state, if at the moment of reinstatement the principal payments provided by the debtor’s note and mortgage are more than two years in arrears. Even the respondent mortgagor concedes that a mortgage may not be in default on reinstatement, although his contention that principal installments which have become delinquent since initiation of foreclosure are simply shifted into a balloon payable at maturity strikes me as friv*553olous. Accordingly, I do not think the phrase, “in the conditions of the mortgage at the time of the commencement of the foreclosure proceedings,” introduces any ambiguity into the statute. Neither does it seem necessary to look for a construction of the statute which “would operate against a forfeiture.” Foreclosure of a mortgage does not involve a forfeiture as does termination of a contract for deed pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 559.21 (1988), for a mortgagor is entitled to any surplus realized from the foreclosure sale. Minn.Stat. § 581.06 (1988); Perkins v. Stewart, 75 Minn. 21, 25, 77 N.W. 434, 435 (1898). In my judgment the principle underlying the Davis court’s recognition of the statutory purpose — “to restore both mortgagor and mortgagee to the status quo ante” — and impact — “[t]he mortgagee is made whole by the requirement that the mortgagor pay not only what is in default in principal and interest, but in addition insurance, taxes, publication costs, costs of service, and attorney’s fees, now increased to $150” — is both applicable to and dispositive of the question before us in this case. Davis, 293 Minn, at 48, 196 N.W.2d at 475 (emphasis added).
I agree too that this court may review any question it elects to consider in the decision of a case but that a party does not raise an issue by presentation in a response to a petition for further review. It may, however, be useful to point out that the Minnesota Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure do not provide for the filing of a notice of review or its equivalent in response to a petition for further review. A petition for further review is the only vehicle available for requesting review of any particular issue. As a practical matter, even though a party is not aggrieved by a decision of the court of appeals, it may be necessary to file what is commonly known as a “therapeutic” petition for further review; that is, a petition to be considered by this court only in the event the adversary petitions for further review.