## Facts

- John and Elizabeth Ewald owned commercial real estate that included a brewery and executed a senior mortgage to Hageman to secure the purchase price.
- The Ewalds later executed a junior mortgage on the same property to secure a promissory note payable to James Manly.
- Manly assigned the note and junior mortgage to Bybee.
- The senior mortgage described the collateral as “one acre and a half in the north-west corner of section five (5), together with the brewery, malt-house, all buildings thereon and fixtures contained therein.”
- The senior mortgage was recorded before the junior mortgage was taken.
- Bybee asserted that the senior mortgage’s description was too uncertain to create a valid lien or to provide constructive notice, and sought priority through foreclosure of the junior mortgage.

## Issues

1. Whether the senior mortgage’s description identified the mortgaged premises with sufficient certainty to create a valid mortgage lien.
2. Whether, if sufficient to create a lien, the recorded senior mortgage provided constructive notice to subsequent mortgagees so as to retain priority over the later mortgage.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed the foreclosure decree in favor of Hageman.
- The court held the senior mortgage’s description was sufficiently certain to identify the land and encumber it.
- The court held that because the description was sufficient to pass an interest, the recorded instrument gave constructive notice to subsequent mortgagees, making Bybee’s lien subordinate.

## Legal Principles

- A property description in a mortgage need not be metes-and-bounds precise if it identifies the premises with reasonable certainty when read as a whole and applied to the circumstances.
- A recorded mortgage that sufficiently identifies the property to create a valid lien imparts constructive notice to later purchasers and mortgagees.
- A junior mortgagee who takes after recordation of a senior mortgage is bound by the notice provided by the recorded instrument, even if the description is not perfectly detailed.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the senior mortgage’s priority, ruling that the recorded description—combining acreage, sectional location, and distinctive improvements—was definite enough to create a valid lien and to charge subsequent mortgagees with constructive notice.


Bybee v. Hageman, 6 Ill. 519 (Ill. 1873)