Roberts v. Pierce

Citations

• 79 Ill. 378

Syllabus

<p>1. Witness—competency of party, where opposite party is described as administrator in the pleadings. The fact that a plaintiff describes himself as an administrator, will not cut off the defendant from being a witness where it appears that the plaintiff could maintain the suit in his own name, and that it was unnecessary for him to describe himself as administrator.</p> <p>3. Assignee — subject to what defenses. A executed a mortgage to B to secure the payment of two promissory notes, and B hypothecated one of the notes to 0, who recovered a judgment on it against A. The other note was hypothecated by B to a bank, to secure an indebtedness which he owed the bank. 0 assigned his judgment to D, as administrator of F. After the death of B, his administrator paid his indebtedness to the bank, and took an assignment of the note which had been hypothecated there, to himself, but for the benefit of the estate. After the death of both B and F, under an order of the county court, the administrator of B assigned the note, which had been assigned to him by the bank, to D, as administrator of F, for the benefit of the estate. On a bill filed by D, as administrator, to foreclose the mortgage, it was held, that he was not an innocent holder of the mortgage indebtedness for value before maturity, so as to preclude defendant from making the same defense that he could have made had the suit been in the name of the payee of the notes or of his administrator; held, also, that A was a competent witness to testify in his own behalf.</p> <p>8. Mortgagor akd mortgagee—rents collected 6y the latter. On a bill to foreclose a mortgage, where it appears that the consideration for the mortgage debt was an interest in a block of bui.ldings purchased by the mortgagor from the mortgagee, and that, by an agreement made between them, the mortgagee was appointed by the mortgagor as his agent to collect the rents and apply the same on the mortgage, debt, and the mortgagee did enter upon the agency