Keller v. Ashford

Citations

• 133 U.S. 610
• 10 S. Ct. 494
• 33 L. Ed. 667
• 1890 U.S. LEXIS 1937

Syllabus

<p>Upon appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia in general term, affirming a judgment in special term, dismissing a bill in equity founded upon a contract bearing interest, the sum in dispute at the time of the judgment in general term, including interest to that time, is the test of the appellate jurisdiction of this court.</p> <p>A recorder’s copy of a deed is competent and sufficient evidence of its contents against the grantee in favor of a person not a party to it, after the grantee and a person who procured it to be made and to whom it was ■ originally delivered have failed to produce it upon notice- to do so.</p> <p>In a deed of real estate, “subject, however, to certain incumbrances now resting thereon, payment of which is assumed by the grantee,” and containing a covenant of special vyarranty by the grantor against all persons claiming under him, the clause assuming payment of the incumbrances includes existing mortgages made by the grantor, as well as unpaid taxes - assessed against him.</p> <p>The grantee named in a deed of real estate, by the terms of which.he assumes the payment of a mortgage thereon, is liable to the grantor for a breach of that agreement, although he is not shown to have had any knowledge of the deed at the time of its execution, if after being informed of its terms he collects the rents and sells and conveys part of the land.'</p> <p>An agreement in.a deed of real estate, by which the grantee assumes the payment of a mortgage .made by the grantor, is a contract between the grantee and’ the mortgagor only; and does hot, unless assented to by the mortgagee, create any direct obligation, at law or in equity, from . the grantee to the mortgagee. But the mortgagee may avail himself in equity of the right of the mortgagor against the grantee. And if the mortgagee, after the land has been sold under a prior mortgage for a ■ sum insufficient to pay that mortgage, and after he has recovered a personal judgment