Booher v. Stewart — 31 Abb. N. Cas. 224

Majority

p. 224

BOOHER v. STEWART.

N. Y. Supreme Court, General Term, Fifth Department;

January, 1894.

Headnote

Chattel mortgage.] An agreement to work a farm on shares, which provides that the entire crop shall continue to belong to the owner of the farm until he is repaid his advances, is not in the nature of a chattel mortgage or conditional sale, but is a mere contract of hiring for the working of the farm to be compensated by a share in the crop, and need not be in writing or filed in order to give it precedence over a chattel mortgage made by the party who did the work; the entire crop, in such a case, when raised, belongs to the owner of the farm until his advances are repaid, and the party who did the work has no interest or property therein which is capable of transfer by chattel mortgage.^[1]

Appeal from an order denying plaintiff’s motion for a. new trial upon the minutes made at the Livingston County-Circuit.

Action brought by George W. Booher against William N. Stewart to recover damages for an alleged conversion of oats by the defendant.

The complaint alleged that on October 4, 1892,. Joseph Macauley was the owner of an undivided one-third of about 1,400 bushels of oats, then in his possession, in the county of Livingston, of the value of $150 that Macauley was indebted to the plaintiff in the sum of about $70, and to secure such indebtedness and further credit at plaintiff’s store, Macauley gave plaintiff his promissory note for $150, secured by a chattel mortgage upon his undivided interest in the oats in controversy that the mortgage was duly filed; that afterwards the

p. 225

plaintiff took possession of the oats, and that defendant unlawfully took the oats from the possession of the plaintiff and converted them to his own use.

The answer was in substance a general denial.

Defendant gave evidence to show that Macauley took the defendant’s farm in York to work on shares, under an oral agreement, by which it was stipulated, among other things, that the entire crop should belong to the defendant until all his advances to Macauley should be paid ; and that the crop consisted of the oats in question.

At the trial, the court charged the jury that if they came to the conclusion that the contract between Macauley and the defendant was as stated by defendant and his witnesses, that he was to retain and have title to the crops until the money which he advanced was paid to him, then it was their duty to render'a verdict for the defendant ; and refused plaintiff’s request to charge that the agreement between defendant and Macauley was in effect a conditional sale,' and not having been reduced to writing or recorded, was void as against a bona fide purchaser or mortgagee.

E. A. Nash, for appellant.

Strang & Doty, for respondent.

The action was trover for an undivided one-third part of a crop of oats raised on the farm of the defendant, by one Macauley, who took the farm to work on shares. The plaintiff claimed under a chattel mortgage given to him by Macauley, and the real question in the case is whether, under the agreement of the defendant with Macauley, the latter had any property or interest in the crop which he could transfer by chattel mortgage or otherwise.

The agreement was, as we have said, to work the farm on shares, but with many special provisions ; among others, that the defendant should’ make certain advances

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to Macauley to enable him to carry on the work, and that the title to the crops should remain in the defendant until those advances were fully paid. There was some conflict of evidence in respect to the last-mentioned feature of the agreement, but the jury was abundantly justified in finding, as, under the submission of the case to them, they must be presumed to have found, that such was the agreement.

Under this agreement there seems to be no room for the contention of the appellant. Here was no lease, nor was the relation of landlord and tenant created between the parties. It was, in effect, a contract of hiring to work the defendant’s farm, compensation to be rendered in a share of the crop (Unglish v. Marvin, 28 N. Y. St. Rep. R. 68; Reynolds v. Reynolds, 48 Hun, 142 , and the cases •cited). The entire crop belonged to the defendant, except .as otherwise provided by the agreement, and by the .agreement it was provided that the entire crop should ■continue to belong to the defendant until he was repaid .the advances made by him. This agreement was not in the nature of a chattel mortgage, nor a conditional sale, nor a pledging of the property of the debtor for the security of the creditor, because, the property was the creditor’s, from the "beginning, and was to become the debtor’s only on payment of his debt.

The case seems to be entirely within the doctrine of Andrew v. Newcomb ( 32 N. Y. 417 ), which case it closely resembles in its facts. Such being the nature and effect of the agreement, it was not necessary that it should be In writing nor filed as a chattel mortgage in order to give it precedence over the chattel mortgage of the plaintiff. Indeed, under such agreement Macauley had no property or interest in the crop, which was capable of transfer by chattel mortgage, and the plaintiff took nothing by the paper executed to him.

We find no exception in the case which points to error

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■on the trial, and conclude that the order appealed from must be affirmed.

Lewis, Haight and Bradley, JJ., concurred.

Order affirmed.

Cases cited

Andrew v. Newcomb 32 N. Y. 417 N.Y. p. 226