Court Opinion

ID: 9868876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 19:03:08.481077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:56.661066
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
Appellants earnestly insist that we erred in holding that the sale of the property of the minors involved in this case by the trustee was invalid. The gist of the contention is that the Legislature had authority to authorize the probate court to determine whether it would permit the guardian to execute a mortgage or a deed of trust, and that the statute (Art. 4195) in using both terms, the term “deed of trust” must be construed as an instrument containing a power in the trustee to sell. The contention is supported by a plausible agreement. But while it is true that the term “deed of trust” implies an instrument containing a power to sell, yet we do not think the implication must necessarily be given effect in every case. To illustrate, in the case of Jackson v. Harby, 65 Texas, 710, our Supreme Court had occasion to construe an instrument designated as a “trust deed to secure” a debt. During the course of the opinion, the court said:
“Deeds of trust coveying property directly to trustees', made to secure and pay particular creditors, though expressed in terms sufficient to pass title, if made for creditors generally, are construed to be mortgages, ‘with some of the qualities of an assignment superadded.’ Baldwin v. Beet, 22 Texas, 718; Burrill on Assignments, 3rd ed., secs. 6, 7, 8. The instrument under which the plaintiffs claimed, was of this character.”
In McLane v. Paschal, 47 Texas, 365, it is said, quoting from the headnotes:
“It. is now finally and definitely settled by this court, that a deed of trust to secure the payment of a debt, does not operate as an absolute transfer of the property, on which it is executed, to the trustee, upon the trust mentioned in the deed, defeasible upon the conditions therein stipulated; but that such instrument is, in legal effect a mere mortgage, with a power to sell.”
In view, therefore, of the solicitude of the Legislature in providing safeguards for the interests of minors in the forced sale of their property, we think the terms “mortgage” or “trust deed,” as used in the order of the probate court, authorizing *326the guardian in question to so encumber the property of his wards, should be construed as synonymous in spirit or purpose, and that if in any case under the laws relating to the subject, as is contended, an emergency case arises which would authorize the probate court to confer upon the guardian a power to sell the property of minors encumbered without observing the safeguards generally provided, the order at least should specifically state that the trust deed might contain the power to sell.
It can certainly be said that the records in the proceedings of the probate court under consideration present no emergency for the trustee in the deed of trust to execute the power of sale therein provided.
We conclude that the motion for rehearing should be overruled.