Chemical National Bank of New York v. New York Dock Co.

Headnote

Lien — warehousemen — goods stored by agent without notice to warehouseman of actual ownership — warehouseman does not acquire lien thereon for indebtedness of agent arising from storage of other goods.

Chemical Nat. Bank v. New York Dock Co., 203 App. Div. 108 , affirmed.

Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered November 17, 1922, in favor of plaintiff upon the submission of a controversy under section 546 of the Civil Practice Act. Plaintiff, at the request of the Republic Trading Company, doing business in New York, issued its letters of credit in favor of a Canadian firm enabling it to draw a sight draft upon plaintiff for the invoice value of merchandise shipped to the trading company. The bank paid the draft and received an assignment of the shipping documents evidencing title to the merchandise. The trading company became bankrupt and paid nothing on account of the transa ction. The bank in the meantime had intrusted the merchandise to the trading company for the purpose of storage and sale and the latter stored it with defendant without disclosing plaintiff’s ownership and received from defendant its non-negotiable warehouse receipt which it afterwards indorsed and turned over to plaintiff with an order for the goods. Plaintiff tendered the same to defendant with the amount of its charges in respect of the merchandise and demanded delivery thereof which was refused upon the ground that defendant claimed a lien thereon for an indebtedness owing to it by the trading company for warehouseman’s charges in respect to other goods previously stored and withdrawn by said company.