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Misc.]

Supreme Court, March, 1899.

vides that the motion may be made at any time after younger issues shall have been tried in their regular order. Objection is made that the affidavits in support of the motion do not state that younger issues have been tried in their regular order. Such a statement should as a general rule, in cases triable by a jury, appear in the moving papers; but, in the case at bar, the affidavits allege that plaintiffs have wholly failed and neglected to proceed with the prosecution of the action, and have taken absolutely no steps to bring the issues herein to trial, for nearly eighteen months. From this statement the court may reasonably infer that younger issues have been tried in their regular order. There appears to be no doubt of the plaintiffs' unreasonable neglect to prosecute the action. The answer, however, sets up a counterclaim, and demands affirmative relief; but it does not appear that defendant has taken any steps to bring the case to trial. He is, apparently, as guilty of laches as are the plaintiffs. In the case of Arnal v. Rahlff (4 Law Bull. 3), Mr. Justice Barrett, sitting at Special Term, held that, in a case where a counterclaim has been interposed, the defendant is also an actor in the case, and should bring the case to trial himself, or make some reasonable effort to do so. Also, in the case of Clare v. Crittenden (11 N. Y. Supp. 519), the General Term of this department dismissed, as frivolous, an appeal from an order denying a motion of this kind in a case where a counterclaim was pleaded, and both parties had neglected to bring the case to trial for nearly three years. In the case at bar, the plaintiffs' offer to restore the case to the calendar, and proceed to trial with all diligence, or, at defendant's option, to discontinue, without costs. So far as the defendant's counterclaim is concerned, he cannot obtain judgment upon it on a motion of this kind. In the case of Roy v. Thompson, 8 How. Pr. 253, it was held that "only a judgment of dismissal that can be founded upon such a motion," and that "When a defendant claims affirmative relief, legal or equitable, the duty of an actor in bringing the cause to trial devolves upon him," and that "He can only obtain the relief when the cause is brought to a trial upon his own notice or that of the plaintiff." I am of opinion that the motion must be denied, but, under the circumstances, without costs.

Motion denied, without costs.

Supreme Court, March, 1899.

[Vol. 26.

WILLIAM TILDEN, Individually and as Executor, Etc., of WILLIAM TILDEN, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. MARMADUKE TILDEN et al., Defendants.

(Supreme Court, New York Special Term, March, 1899.)

Mortgage Equitable, on property not presently reducible to possession - Bona fide purchasers not protected for the face of unconscionable claims.

An agreement to give, for an executed consideration, a mortgage upon a vested interest in realty and personalty, not reducible to possession until the death of a third party, is an equitable mortgage which, although not filed as a chattel mortgage, is good between the parties and against all subsequent transferees and lienors except bona fide purchasers whose conveyances were recorded at the time. Such bona fide purchasers will not be protected to the full amount of inequitable claims, but only for actual advances and lawful interest thereon.

MOTION to confirm the report of the referee appointed to ascertain the interests of the parties, in an action of partition.

Hand, Bonney, Pell & Jones, for plaintiff.

Alexander & Green, for Geo. H. Iago.

Goodrich, Whitney & Hagen, for Lillian E. F. Braddon et al.

Robert H. Worthington, for Henry Isaacs et al.

Charles N. Morgan, for John A. Holdsworth et al.

Willard U. Taylor, for John B. McCarthy, guardian ad litem.

Henry P. Butler, for Beverly B. Tilden.

Charles H. Woodruff, for Marmaduke Tilden et al.

David J. Newland, for Alonzo B. Fuller et al.

Misc.]

Supreme Court, March, 1899.

Straley, Hasbrouck & Schloeder, for Egbert Lefevere.

Meliss, Pryor & Richards, for Phillip Van Volkenburgh.

Coudert Brothers, for Charles Bon et al.

Frayer & Seaman, for W. Vaughn Williams.

RUSSELL, J. Divested of many details essential to be considered in determining the reach of the interlocutory judgment in this action for partition and sale of real and personal property upon the motion to confirm the report of the referee to ascertain the interests of the parties, and about which there is no substantial difference between the contending parties, the improvident transfers by the owner of one-fourth interest in the estate excite the real controversies to be settled. That owner is Mrs. Lillian E. F. Braddon, formerly Mrs. Milano C. Tilden, who received by devise and bequest from her deceased husband this one-fourth interest in his father's estate, which interest was a vested remainder taking effect in possession on the death of the testator's widow, Almira S. Tilden on the 22d day of September, 1897. The testator died in June, 1869, and his son, Milano C. Tilden, died in August, 1889. The testator left a large amount of real and personal property in the city of New York, the subject of this action of partition, the value of the real estate not being shown, and the accounting as to the personalty by the executors before the referee, displaying, besides the payment of debts and legacies, a residuum of about $400,000.

Within about three years preceding his death, by sufferance or action, Milano C. Tilden placed upon his vested remainder of one-fourth, successive liens to the number of nineteen, now unpaid and amounting approximately to $15,000. After his decease, his widow, now Mrs. Braddon, made various transfers of interests in the one-fourth remainder to the number of twenty-six, aggregating now upwards of $70,000, aside from the transfers to the defendants Bon and Holdsworth. No question is now made by any party against the validity of any of these transfers or liens, except as to the claim of the defendants Bon, who inject their assertion of superior lien to that of some of the others by virtue of priority in time; and in so far as the defendant Holds

Supreme Court, March, 1899.

[Vol. 26.

worth claims the relics of Mrs. Braddon's interests without diminution by the imposition of the claim of the defendants Bon.

The defendants Bon, for goods sold Mrs. Braddon, received at Paris, France, on the 18th of December, 1891, an agreement from her to give a mortgage upon her vested estate and remainder for the sum of 13,750 francs, with six per cent. interest, to be paid on the liquidation of the distribution of the estate of William Tilden, deceased. They claim this amounts to an equitable mortgage on a pro tanto interest in her vested remainder.

The claim of the defendant Holdsworth is in the agreement of June 4, 1896, succeeding the agreement of the 26th of March, 1896, in the nature of a conveyance and assignment of what was left of Mrs. Braddon's interest, but which contained an agreement that if that interest became vested in Holdsworth by the 26th of March, 1897, he would pay her the further sum as purchase money, amounting to one-half the net profit realized by him after the payment of arrears of annuity, and the charges and incumbrances, with costs and expenses, but if the possession was delayed longer than that date the sum of £1,500 was to be deducted for each six months' delay thereafter. By their agreement, undoubtedly, Mrs. Braddon was interested in one-half of the receipts for the remnants of her property, less the forfeits, as a part of the purchase money, if not as an interest definitely retained.

Holdsworth and Mrs. Braddon assert that this agreement between themselves divested her of all possible claim to the property, and substituted Holdsworth as the recipient, bound only by his personal agreement to properly account to her, which agreement is enforcible only outside of the domain of this litigation. They maintain also that the Bon claim is valueless as a lien, because it was not a mortgage in presenti, and no notice was had of its existence by Holdsworth or any of the prior lienors, they occupying, as is claimed, the position of bona fide purchasers for value.

Let us then judge as to the effectiveness of the claim of the defendants Bon. It is prior in point of time to the most of the other twenty-five transfers or liens executed by Mrs. Braddon and is founded upon a just consideration. It was not a mortgage in itself, but an agreement to give a mortgage, not for a consideration in the future, but for one that was past, and not upon property to be acquired in the future, but upon a vested interest then owned by the debtor. As between the debtor and the cred

Misc.]

Supreme Court, March, 1899.

itor the agreement was perfectly enforcible, and created a situation in which equity recognizes that as done which ought to be done. It becomes, therefore, an equitable mortgage. Payne v. Wilson, 74 N. Y. 348; McCaffrey v. Woodin, 65 id. 459.

This equitable mortgage did not need to be filed as a chattel mortgage for the statute requiring such filing includes only a mortgage upon personalty which is capable of delivery. National Hudson River Bank v. Chaskin, 28 App. Div. 311; Booth v. Kehoe, 71 N. Y. 341; State Trust Co. v. Casino Co., 19 App. Div. 344.

Mrs. Braddon's remainder in the personalty was an interest which could not be accompanied by possession at the time of the transaction with the Bons. Nor does the omission to record deprive the mortgagee of any rights except as against those who were bona fide purchasers for value, and have recorded conveyances. Westbrook v. Gleason, 79 N. Y. 23.

Therefore, the claim of the defendants Bon to payment according to priority is good as against all the transferees or lienors subsequent in date, except those who were purchasers for value. The judgment must, therefore, provide for the payment of this claim, if sufficient remains, placing the claim in due order after those whose transfers or mortgages were recorded, except as otherwise indicated in this opinion.

Should such deferring to purchasers for value be as broad as their claims, or limited by any consideration? Under the argument of the counsel for the Bons it is only necessary to consider in the answer to this inquiry the nature of the claims of Stuart, Iago, Hartland and Holdsworth. Stuart let Mrs. Braddon have £300, and she sold and conveyed to him an interest of £900 of her one-fourth interest, with the right to repurchase before February 9, 1895. If, during that three years, the interest was not repurchased then Stuart's share was to be enhanced by five per cent. interest, from February 9, 1895, until the remainder fell into possession by the death of the widow.

It is very clear that this was a very improvident agreement. The personalty alone was undoubtedly sufficient to provide security for a loan of £300 at that date, in 1892. The space of three years was the only period of forbearance within which the £900 did not draw interest. Upon the usual principle of life expectancies the sum of £360 would have been sufficient to have justified the advancing of £300 for the probable period of delay in

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