Kucher v. Scott

Citations

• 96 Wash. 317
• 165 P. 82
• 1917 Wash. LEXIS 588

Syllabus

<p>Estoppel — Person Making Damage Possible. Where the owner of mortgaged real estate executed a renewal note and mortgage to a loan company and, without taking up the original, placed it in the hands of the company’s secretary, who sold it to an innocent purchaser and misappropriated the proceeds, the loss must fall upon the mortgagor as the one of two or more innocent parties who placed it in the power of a third person to occasion the loss.</p> <p>Principal and Agent — Authority to Collect Mortgage. A mortgage loan company that took and sold mortgages to its clients is not the agent of a buyer with authority to collect the principal, where it did not have possession of the note, from the mere fact that it collected interest from time to time, nor because the note recited that it was payable at its office.</p> <p>Same. In such a case, the company is not authorized to collect the principal by a letter inclosing the last interest coupon, assuming that the mortgage “had been closed,” and directing remittance by New York draft, where the company had been advised that the note would be sent to a certain bank for collection, which was done.</p> <p>Same. Authority to collect a mortgage when due does not authorize the agent to collect prior to the due date.</p> <p>Estoppel — Person Making Loss Possible. Where the owner of mortgaged real estate executed a renewal mortgage to the loan company before the original became due, and delivered it to the secretary without taking up the original, which had been assigned, and the secretary misappropriated the proceeds and failed to credit the payment to the account of the assignee of the original, the mortgagor must, as against the assignee, sustain the loss as the one of two or more innocent parties who placed it in the power of a third person to occasion the loss.</p>