First National Bank of Oakdale v. Brashear

RICHARDS, J.

This appeal is prosecuted by the plaintiff in an action wherein the latter sought to foreclose a chattel mortgage which had been executed to it by the defendants E. E. Brashear and Marie Brashear on October 22, 1921, to secure a promissory note for the principal sum of $6,300, also then executed, and which note provided for interest and future advances. The mortgage in question was in form a crop mortgage, by the terms of which the Brashears mortgaged to the plaintiff the crops growing and to be grown during a series of succeeding years upon a certain tract of land consisting of 1,000 acres which had been subleased to said E. E. Brashear during the year 1920 by two certain parties named Collins and Cathey, who were, in

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turn, the lessees of a much larger tract of land, which embraced the above acreage, from the Turlock Irrigation District, the owner thereof. The sublease to E. E. Brashear provided that the latter should summer-fallow at least 300 acres of said subleased land each year and that in the event of his failure so to do his lease should become null and void. It was while he was the holder of said sublease that E. E. Brashear and his wife executed and delivered to the plaintiff the note and mortgage above mentioned, and which mortgage purported to cover two-thirds of the crops grown and to be grown upon said land. In July, 1920, said Collins and Cathey assigned their lease of the larger tract to one J. T. Denton, and upon the date thereof the irrigation district executed a new lease to Denton covering the same property for a lengthened term of years and at a reduced rental. Upon the same date Denton executed a new sublease to Brashear for the remainder of the term covered by his former lease and containing the same clause relative to summer-fallowing during the term thereof of 300 acres of the subleased land. During the spring of the year 1922 and while the defendant E. E. Brashear and his wife were in possession of the premises thus subleased he proceeded to summer-fallow approximately 400 acres of said land preparatory to planting the same with grain during the proper planting season of that or the following year. After having done so, and being apparently much involved financially, Brashear applied to the plaintiff for further credit; which application being rather coldly received Brashear concluded to surrender his sublease to his immediate landlord Denton and abandon the premises, and he accordingly on or about September 21, 1922, executed and caused to be recorded a formal surrender of said sublease to said Denton, and shortly thereafter Brashear and his wife abandoned said premises and went to live elsewhere. Thereupon said Denton went into possession of the premises thus surrendered and abandoned and subsequently thereto and on October 22, 1922, made and entered into an agreement with the defendant Huddleson, which agreement was in the form of a cropping lease covering about 360 acres of said 1,000-acre tract, wherein it was provided .that said Huddleson was to plant and cultivate a crop or crops of grain upon said land which had thereto