Groves v. Sentell

Citations

• 153 U.S. 465
• 14 S. Ct. 898
• 38 L. Ed. 785
• 1894 U.S. LEXIS 2197

Syllabus

<p>The Stephen Morgan, 94 U. S. 599, affirmed to the point that a party who does not appeal from the final decree of a Circuit Court cannot be heard in opposition thereto, when the case is properly brought here by the appeal of the adverse party.</p> <p>A note by which three parties, signing, it, promise to pay to the order of - the payee at a bank in New Orleans the sum named therein with interest, not negotiable, is a joint obligation under the law of Louisiana, and binds the several parties thereto only for, their proportion of the debt; since, to make it a, solidary obligation, binding each of the promisors for the whole debt, the solidarity must, under the law of that State, be expressly stipulated, and is never presumed.</p> <p>The promisors on that note, in order to secure it, mortgaged real estate in Louisiana, which they then held in common, undivided. They thereby severally declared that they were indebted to the mortgagee, etc., and .that they did thereby mortgage to the mortgagee the property described in the deed. There was no stipulation showing an intention to mortgage separately an undivided part of the property for an undivided paft of .the debt. Reid, that it was the intention of the parties that, the security for the purchase money should rest upon the entire entity.</p> <p>A mortgagor has the power, under the laws of Louisiana, to exclude indivisibility in contracting the mortgage, and, if he fails to do so, indivisibility applies, not alone as . a result of his silence, but also because, being the general rule and of the nature of the contract, it exists unless excluded by its express terms or by a plain implication deducible from it.</p> <p>The divisibility of a debt secured by a mortgage does not necessarily ,. import the divisibility of the mortgage securing it.</p> <p>The voluntary partition by the mortgagees of the property covered by the mortgage did not operate to prevent the mortgage creditor from enforcing his security against either pa