v.
The First National Bank of Atchison
The opinion of the court was delivered by
: In 1887 Jesse C. Crall owned about 17i acres of land near the city of Atchison, which he sold to Samuel C. King for $17,000. The purchase was made by King for a syndicate of 15 persons, but the deed from Crall was taken and held in King's name until the persons composing the syndicate had organized themselves into a corporation. Crall took two shares in the purchase of $1,000 each, leaving $15,000 due to him upon the land, one-lxalf of which was paid when the deed from Crall was executed, and for the balance King executed a note or paper promising to pay $7,500 one year after date out of the proceeds of the sale of the land only, without any personal liability on his part, with interest thereon from date at the rate of 8 per cent, per annum. At the same time he executed a mortgage upon the land to secure the payment of the debt according to the terms of the note or paper above mentioned. Soon afterward the persons composing the syndicate for whom the land was purchased and held by King organized a corporation called “ The Hyde Park Investment Company,'' and the land was then conveyed to the corporation by King. Shortly afterward Crall borrowed about $4,000 from the First National Bank of Atchison, and to secure the payment of the same transferred to the bank the note and mortgage executed by King. Neither of the debts mentioned was paid when it became due, and the bank brought an action on the note executed by King and assigned to it by Crall, asking a personal judgment [*51] against both King and Crall. The Hyde Park Investment Company was made a party because it claimed an interest in the mortgaged property, and the bank also asked a foreclosure of the mortgage. Crall answered, admitting the indorsement and transfer of the note and mortgage, and alleging that they had been transferred only as collateral security 'for a personal loan from the bank of $4,080, and that, when the King note and mortgage were collected, his debt to the bank should be first paid out of the proceeds, and the balance of the proceeds remaining after paying that debt should be paid to him. King answered that in the sale of the land he only acted in the capacity of agent or trustee, and that he did not become personally liable for the payment of the debt in suit. The Hyde Park Investment Company answered that it had become vested with all the title and interest which King ever had in the land, and denied all the other averments of the petition. At the end of the trial, and after the court had found that King and Crall were not liable to the bank for the debt, and that The Hyde Park Investment Company was liable for the amount of the same, the bank, with the permission of the court, filed an amended petition, with a view of making its pleading conform to the proofs, alleging that an agreement respecting the sale of the land had been made prior to the execution of the written papers, and that it was the binding one, and also that the investment company had assumed the obligation for the balance of the purchase-price of the land. Judgment was given to the bank against the investment company for the full amount of the debt, and a foreclosure of the mortgage was decreed, while King and Crall were allowed to go thence without day, and to recover their costs. The Hyde Park Investment Company brought the case to this court, [*52] making only the First National Bank of Atchison a defendant in error. The bank filed a cross-petition in error against Samuel C. King, seeking for a modification of the judgment, in which it asks that a personal judgment be ordered against Samuel C. King as well as against the investment company. Crall was not served with summons in error, nor otherwise made a party in the proceedings in error in this court, and it appears that he died about three years after the proceeding was. begun. A motion is now made to dismiss the proceeding because of the absence of Crall.
[*53]
The proceedings in error will be dismissed.