11 Mo. App. 534 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1882
delivered the opinion of the court.
The defendant was trustee in a deed of trust conveying land to secure a debt. He exposed the property to sale under the terms of the deed, and the cestui que trust became the purchaser. After the sale the purchaser paid certain taxes and also a judgment, which were liens upon the land superior to the lion of the deed of trust, and the trustee reimbursed him for the money so expended, out of the proceeds of the sale. To recover of the trustee the money so expended, the plaintiff, who is the owner of the equity of redemption, has brought this action against him.
The deed of trust contains the provisions usual in such deeds. It provides in substance that the grantors in the deed shall keep the taxes paid, the property insured, and clear of the statutory lien claims; that if they fail to do this, the cestui que trust may do it; and that any money so expended by him shall be an additional charge upon the land secured by the deed of trust. It also contains the following direction as to the manner in which the trustee
We take it that there are two questions presented by this record: First, whether the defendant had any authority under the deed of trust to reimburse the purchaser for the money so paid' by him in the discharge of the taxes and. of this judgment lien ; and, second, whether, if he had no such authority, he acted with such want of diligence or prudence as makes him personally liable’to the plaintiff.
Did the defendant exercise such a measure of prudence ? The facts were that the sale took place at the court house door, between the hours of twelve and one o’clock of December 11, 1879. Near the hour of three o’clock the purchaser paid the taxes, and took receipts of the collector, dated on the same day. The next morning he paid the fee-bill which had been issued upon the judgment, which, as before stated, was a lien upon the land superior to the deed of trust, aud took a receipt of the clerk of the circuit court dated that day, December 12, 1879. Laterin the same day he presented these vouchers to the defendant and received a credit for the amount embraced in them on the books* of the defendant against the charge which had been made against him as purchaser of the property. Nothing was said as to the time at which the taxes were paid, and so far as the evidence speaks on the subject, it tends to show that the defendant did not know whether they had been paid before or after the sale. The receipt of the money paid on
The circuit court took substantially this view of the law. We see no error in this, and nothing in the minor points presented which need be further noticed. The judgment is affirmed.