Prudential Insurance Co. of America v. Forbes

Brogden, J. On or about 31 July, 1922, Leona P. Hudson and her husband procured a loan from the plaintiff for $2,000, and secured the same by a deed of trust upon the land of the borrowers to Chickamauga Trust Company, trustee. When the examiner of the title to the Hudson land undertook to search the records the first inquiry would be: From whom did the Hudsons get the land? The records answered the inquiry by showing that Emma J. Tucker was a married woman and that her husband was S. D. Tucker, because they were the grantors of Leona P. Hudson in a deed indexed on the grantor’s side “Tucker al Emma to Leona Hudson.” The cross-indexes further 'disclosed the deed from “J. B. Hill et al to Emma J. Tucker, recorded on 30 December, 1916. Consequently the abstractor knew from the index that the land was duly conveyed to Emma J. Tucker, and that S. D. Tucker was her husband. Hence, an examination of the grantor’s cross-index would have revealed the deed of trust to Forbes, trustee, securing the $4,000 note to the National Bank of Greenville and indexed “Tucker, S. D. et ux. 'to F. J. Forbes Tr.” The merit of the controversy is determined by the principles of law declared in West v. Jackson, 198 N. C., 693, 153 S. E., 257. The Court said: “It must be conceded that the indexing and cross-indexing of the deed of trust in the case at bar is not a strict compliance with the statute, and the registers of deeds throughout the State should doubtless set out on the index and cross-index the name of the wife. There are perhaps hundreds of deeds of trust in the State indexed and cross-indexed in the same manner employed in the present case, and we are not inclined to strike down these instruments as a matter of law, particularly when there was sufficient information upon the index and cross-index to create the duty of making inquiry.” Affirmed.