Court Opinion

ID: 9814807
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 00:09:26.902994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:33:35.974595
License: Public Domain

CROW, PJ,
concurs in the judgment because the evidence was amply sufficient to justify the court below in the presumed finding that The Bank of Leipsic Company agreed to accept the certificates of deposit in part payment of the mortgage indebtedness, pursuant to the contract of sale, and therefore it is unnecessary to decide whether in Ohio, set-off would result if there was no such agreement, it being settled in this state that a contract of assumption and to pay, such as the evidence tends to prove in this case, is revocable by the parties making it untii the holder of the indebtedness has accepted, adopted, or acted on the faith of, the contract of assumption and payment. 117 Oh St 127.
The doctrine of that case is that an assumption of and agreement to pay, mortgage indebtedness by a purchaser of land covered by the mortgage goes no further, so far as concerns the persons so agreeing and the one holding the mortgage indebtedness, than to confer on the latter a right to elect to take advantage of the agreement. Such right is but a result of the agreement, and it is also the settled law in Ohio that the holder of a promissory note secured by mortgage may ignore the mortgage security and enforce collection of the note personally from the maker regardless of a contract between the maker and one who has agreed to pay the note.
Without definitely holding that in this case the doctrine of set-off would not apply but for the presumed finding that The Bank of Leipsic Company agreed to the contract of assumption and payment, it is in my opinion extremely doubtful whether the doctrine could be applied, which in effect would be to compel The Bank of Leipsic Company without in any manner connecting it with the transaction between the Kellys and the Kreinbrinks, to accept the Kreinbrinks as its debtors on the promissory note of which the Kellys were makers, in place of the Kellys themselves, and thus cut' off tjio right Of The Bank of Leipsic Company to recover personally from the Kellys who may not have had any claim against The Bank of Leipsic Company, the record being silent on that point.