Brown v. Rouse

Citations

• 125 Cal. 645
• 58 P. 267
• 1899 Cal. LEXIS 920

Syllabus

<p>Husband and Wife—Agency—Unauthorized Loan—Ratification —Findings Against Evidence—Decision upon Former Appeal. The findings in this case as to the ratification by a wife of the unauthorized act of her husband in borrowing money, which was obtained upon a note and mortgage executed by him without authority as her attorney-in-fact, held not sustained by evidence not differing in legal effect from that appearing upon a former appeal (104 Cal. 672), which was held insufficient to establish a ratification of the loan, for want of knowledge by the wife of her rights, and for want of reception by her of the benefit of the loan, except as to part thereof paid to release a mortgage upon her property.</p> <p>■Id.—Release of Prior Mortgage of Wife’s Property—Unauthorized Second Mortgage—Voluntary Payment—Mistake of Law—Subrogation.—A stranger to a prior mortgage of the wife’s property who voluntarily advanced money upon an unauthorized second mortgage thereupon executed by the husband assuming to act under a power of attorney from the wife, which did not authorize the loan or the mortgage, and who voluntarily caused part of the money advanced to be paid to release and discharge the prior mortgage, for his own supposed security, acting under a mistake of law, with knowledge of all the facts, cannot, upon the declaring of the second mortgage invalid, be subrogated to the rights of the prior mortgagee as to the money so voluntarily paid.</p> <p>Id.—Subrogation not Allowed in Favor of Volunteer.—Subrogation will not be decreed in favor of a mere volunteer who, without any duty, pays the debt of another. It will not arise in favor of a stranger; but only in favor of a party who on some sort of compulsion discharges a demand against a common debtor.</p>