Adams v. Harvey

225 P. 407, 129 Wash. 483, 1924 Wash. LEXIS 771
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedMay 5, 1924
DocketNo. 18374
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 225 P. 407 (Adams v. Harvey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Adams v. Harvey, 225 P. 407, 129 Wash. 483, 1924 Wash. LEXIS 771 (Wash. 1924).

Opinion

Bridges, J.

This is a suit for eloignment of certain railroad ties upon which a stumpage lien was claimed.

At all the times herein mentioned, one Plamondon was the receiver of the Lewis River Tie Company, which owned and operated a sawmill on the Lewis river, in Clarke county. On April 12,1920, he and the plaintiff, Adams, entered into a written contract whereby the former agreed to manufacture and sell, and the latter agreed to purchase, 35,000 railroad ties, to be delivered f. o. b. at the town of Ridgefield. On the same day that the plaintiff purchased these 35,000 ties, he made a written agreement with the defendant, Harvey, who was a tie broker living in Portland, Oregon, [485]*485for the sale to the latter of the identical 35,000 ties honght from the receiver. Delivery under this contract was to be made at the same place as under the receiver’s contract. At the time these contracts were made, it was probably understood, at least between the plaintiff Adams and the receiver, that the timber from which these ties would be cut would come from a tract of land known as the Crogster timber. A few days after making the foregoing contracts, and on or about the 21st of April, the receiver and the defendant, Harvey, entered into a contract whereby the receiver was to manufacture and sell, and Harvey was to buy, 100,-000 ties, delivery to be made as in the other contracts. Not long after the execution of this contract, its terms were changed so as to make the amount of the delivery 65.000 instead of 100,000 ties. After the execution of the contracts above mentioned, and on or about the 20th of the following May, the plaintiff Adams and the receiver entered into a written contract whereby the former agreed to sell to the latter what is known as the Weyerhauser timber, then owned by Adams and which was located reasonably close to the receiver’s mill. But little, if any, cash was paid, but promissory notes were given for the unpaid portion of the purchase price.

We have, then, to deal with four contracts; the first being the purchase by Adams from the receiver of 35.000 ties; the second being the purchase hy Harvey from Adams of these identical ties; the third being the purchase by Harvey from the receiver of 65,000 ties, and the fourth, the purchase by the receiver from Adams of the so-called Weyerhauser timber. It appears that, after these contracts were made, the receiver determined to first cut the Adams timber. He entered into a written contract with one Whitbeck to do the logging. Late in the spring, logging operations were commenced on the Adams land. The logs were [486]*486taken to the receiver’s mill, where a part of them were ont into ties on the 35,000 tie contract with Adams, and the remainder were cut into ties on the 65,000 tie contract between the receiver and Harvey.

As these ties were cut, they were immediately put into the waters of the Lewis river, where they came in charge of a private driving company, whose business it was to drive them down stream to the boom works of the Lewis River Boom & Logging Company, whose duty it was to catch them, take them from the water and load them on cars at Ridgefield. The plaintiff, Adams, filed a stumpage lien on a great many of these ties after they had been put in the river and were in charge of the driving company, but before they were on board cars. After the filing of the lien, many of these ties came into the possession of the defendant, Harvey, and were by him sent out of the state, and the plaintiff, Adams, instituted this suit against him, seeking damages because of the eloignment of the ties and consequent destruction of his lien.

Although we cannot find it stated in the briefs, we assume that the ties which plaintiff claims defendant eloigned were not of the 35,000 tie lot which he had sold defendant, but a part of the 65,000 tie contract between the receiver and the defendant. The plaintiff could not, of course, complain that the defendant had taken away the very ties which he had bought from plaintiff. He could not be guilty of eloigning those ties. The correctness of our assumption is supported by a statement of the trial court in his memorandum opinion as follows: “Adams is not claiming, as I understand the evidence, any stumpage on the 35,000 ties which he contracted to buy and re-sell to Harvey. He is only claiming his stumpage on ties which were sold by Plamondon (the receiver) to Harvey (being [487]*487the 60,000 tie cut), and which Harvey actually received. ’ ’

While these facts are somewhat complicated, we see no way to avoid a recitation of them. For the purpose of discussing the legal question involved, it seems to us that the essential facts may be boiled down to these: that Adams claims a stumpage lien on railroad ties cut by the receiver at his mill from Adams’ timber, which ties the receiver sold and delivered to Harvey, who removed them from the state. The trial court gave judgment against the defendant for something over $7,000, and he has appealed.

(1) It will be remembered that respondent’s stump-age lien was not on the saw logs cut from his land, but on the ties into which they had been sawed at the receiver’s mill, away from and disconnected with the actual logging operations. Appellant contends that a stumpage lien can only be on the logs, piles, spars or other timber, and cannot be on the lumber, ties, and other articles manufactured out of such logs, piles, spars and other timber. On the other hand, the respondent contends that, both under our statutes and the decisions of this court, the logs being sawed into ties before the time for filing his stumpage lien had expired, he was authorized to follow the logs into the ties and claim a lien upon them for his stumpage. The validity of the lien is of vital importance because our statute provides for damages on account of eloigning only when there is a valid lien on the property eloigned. Rem. Comp. Stat., § 1181 [P. C. § 9698]. Under our statutes, so far as timber products are concerned, we have three general kinds of lien; first, what is ordinarily understood as the logger’s lien; second, what is commonly understood as the lien of the laborer who manufactures the logs or other timber products into lumber, ties or other manufactured articles; and third, [488]*488the stumpage lien. While we are here only .directly concerned with the stumpage lien, yet, because of our previous decisions, it will be necessary to consider the other liens. Such being the fact, we may as well at once have them before us.

Section 1162, Rem. Comp. Stat. [P. C. § 9679], provides that:

“Every person performing labor upon, or who shall assist in obtaining or securing, saw logs, spars, piles, cordwood, shingle bolts or other timber . . . shall have a lien upon the same for the work or labor done upon . . . the particular saw logs, spars, cord-wood, shingle bolts or other timber in said claim of lien described, whether such work, labor or services was done, rendered or performed at the instance of the owner of the same or his agent. ’ ’

Section 1163, Rem. Comp. Stat. [P. C. § 9680], provides that:

“Every person performing work or labor or assisting in manufacturing sawlogs and other timber into lumber and shingles, has a lien upon such lumber while the same remains at the mill where it was manufactured, or in the possession or under the control of the manufacturer, whether such work or labor was done at the instance of the owner of such logs or his agent or any contractor or subcontractor of such owner.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
225 P. 407, 129 Wash. 483, 1924 Wash. LEXIS 771, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/adams-v-harvey-wash-1924.