69 Fla. 8 | Fla. | 1915
A bill Avas filed in November, 1913, to enforce the lien of a mortgage to secure an indebtedness of five thousand dollars, due from the Tallahassee Tobacco Company to one Charles Blum, the mortgage being executed in its name by the President and Secretary of the Corporation, under seal, these officers in their acknowledgements claiming to act under the authority of the directors. This mortgage, covering about 288 acres in Leon county was duly recorded. Subsequent to this recordation the Yaeger and Bethel Hardware Company
We discover no error in this ruling. If it be permitted to subsequent purchasers at an execution sale to question the power of the officers, designated by the statute, as the proper officers to execute the mortgages of a corporation, when the corporation declines to do so, a showing stronger than the one before us must be made. It is apparent that the small bid at the execution sale, about three cents an acre, was the result of the overhanging mortgage of five thousand dollars upon this land. No fraud or collusion between the mortgagor and the mortgagee is even suggested; the mortgage antedating the
This portion of the answer did not set up an equity for these defendants, who had to make out a defense that would be available to their predecessor in title when their rights accrued. To destroy its mortgage, the Tobacco Company would have had to allege more' than a want of authority in its president and secretary at or before the execution of a mortgage, for an existing indebtedness, that it had subsequently ratified by partial payments. It may further be mentioned here, that the notes, the evidence of the indebtedness the mortgage was given to secure, were negotiable instruments and passed before maturity to innocent holders.
The order appealed from is affirmed.