Court Opinion

ID: 9828486
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:26:16.110127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:49.697808
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[2] Appellee in its motion for rehearing concedes the correctness of the proposition of law announced in our opinion herein that the execution of a new note and mortgage, if intended to secure or merely to extend the time of the payment of the original debt, will not amount to the payment of the debt nor to a release of the former mortgage; and further concedes that, where the transaction is between the same parties, it will be presumed as a matter of law, in the absence of evidence, to the contrary, that such new note and mortgage were not intended as a payment of the debt. '
[3] Appellee advances a counter proposition which is also sound, that, where it is made to appear that the new note and mortgage was in fact intended by the parties as payment of the original debt, such new note and mortgage will amount to a novation, and the new mortgage will take effect only from the time of its execution. Appellee contends, with reason, that where, as in this case, the notes of the original debtor are marked paid and surrendered with the intention on the part of the creditor to release the original debtor and look only to the substituted debtor, this affords strong evidence of novation.
[4] This case was tried before the court who filed findings of fact. These findings were not incorporated in the original record, but by certiorari were made part of the record herein. Said findings of fact not being in the original record, we overlooked the fact to which our attention has been called, that the court expressly found: “That the notes and mortgage of Tilden O. Childs were not executed and delivered in lieu of nor in renewal or extension of the notes and mortgage of L. C. Kirgen.” If such is the fact, the judgment of the trial court was correct. There is some evidence in the record, in addition to the fact that the Kirgen notes were marked paid and were surrendered and the notes of another party, to wit, Childs, were taken, to indicate that such transaction was intended by the parties as payment of the Kirgen debt. The mortgage being but an incident of the debt, of course, if the debt was paid, the mortgage was extinguished.
As the court made a special finding on this issue, and as we cannot say that finding is unsupported by the evidence, the motion for a rehearing is granted, the judgment of this court reversing and rendering judgment for appellant is set aside, and the judgment of the trial court affirmed.