Albany Warehouse Co. v. F. B. Fisk Cotton Co.

67 So. 728, 12 Ala. App. 527, 1914 Ala. App. LEXIS 280
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 26, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 67 So. 728 (Albany Warehouse Co. v. F. B. Fisk Cotton Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alabama Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Albany Warehouse Co. v. F. B. Fisk Cotton Co., 67 So. 728, 12 Ala. App. 527, 1914 Ala. App. LEXIS 280 (Ala. Ct. App. 1914).

Opinions

THOMAS, J.

The appeal is on the record proper and seeks to review the action of the trial court in sustaining a demurrer to the complaint, as a result where[531]*531of it became necessary for tbe appellant (plaintiff below) to take a nonsuit, which it did under the provisions of section 3017 of the Code.

Count 2 of the complaint will appear in the report of the case; and, while there are numerous grounds of alleged insufficiency stated in the demurrer filed to it, only one of such grounds need claim our attention and consideration, since appellee seems to concede the lack of merit in all the others. This one goes to the very gist of the complaint, and raises the question as to whether or not comity between states requires or permits the enforcement in this state of the statute of the state of Georgia that is pleaded in the count and upon which plaintiff’s right of action is therein predicated, it being insisted by the demurrant that it does not so require or permit, because, as urged, such statute is in conflict with the rule of decision and the public policy obtaining in this state as to such matters, and its enforcement here would operate to the injury of the defendant as a citizen of this state, in that it would impose upon him a liability which would not have existed had the alleged sale occurred in this state rather than, as is alleged in the complaint, in the state of Georgia.

In the Code of 1867, as section 1164 thereof, we had in this state a statute similar to the mentioned statute of the state of Georgia that is set out in the complaint. This statute of ours was carried also into our Code of 1876 as section 1415, and received a construction by our Supreme Court in the case of Lehman, Durr & Co. v. Warren & Burk, 53 Ala. 535. It does not appear, however, in any subsequent Code, and by its repeal — it being in abrogation of common law — the common-law rule was restored, and has ever since obtained in this jurisdiction, which is to the effect that a sale of [532]*532goods, even for cash, if the possession is delivered unconditionally to' the buyer, without any fraud on his part, vests the title at once in him, although the purchase money is not paid.—Blachshear v. Burke, 74 Ala. 239; Pelham v. Grocery Co., 146 Ala. 216, 41 South. 12, 8 L. R. A. (N. S.) 448, 119 Am. St. Rep. 19.

The Georgia statute, as will be seen from it as copied into the complaint, provides that “cotton [and other produce therein named] * * * sold by planters and commission merchants, on cash sale, shall not be considered as the property of the buyer until fully paid for, although it may have been delivered to the buyer,” etc., and the Supreme Court of Georgia, in construing and applying this statute, have held that since, under the conditions named in the statute, the buyer could acquire no title to the property, he could not confer any upon a purchaser from him, although the purchaser bought in good faith, for value, and without any knowledge that the purchase price had not been paid by the buyer to the seller, and that consequently the seller could assert his title and ownership to the property against either the buyer or the innocent purchaser found in possession.—Savannah G. P. A. v. MacIntyre, 92 Ga. 166, S. E. 1023.

The action here, as1 will be seen from a reading of the complaint, is against the defendant as such a purchaser —not, however, in detinue for the recovery of the property, which, the complaint avers, had been disposed of by defendant before the bringing of the suit, nor in tro-ver for its conversion, but waiving the tort, ex con-tractu, on a special count for money had and received, for the value of the cotton belonging to plaintiff that had been so disposed of by defendant, which form of action .for the wrong complained of is entirely permissible, under our system of pleading, when the property [533]*533has been sold and converted into money before tbe bringing of tbe suit.—Miller v. King, 67 Ala. 575; Pike v. Bright, 29 Ala. 332; Bettis v. McNider, 137 Ala. 588, 34 South. 813, 97 Am. St. Rep. 59; Potts v. First Nat. Bank, 102 Ala. 286, 14 South. 663; Steiner v. Clisby, 103 Ala. 181, 15 South. 612; Stafford v. Sibley, 106 Ala. 189, 17 South. 324.

The complaint (said count 2) brings plaintiff’s case clearly within the purview of the Georgia statute, as so construed by the Supreme Court of that state, in that it alleges that the plaintiff was, at the time of the sale, a commission merchant in that state; that the cotton, the subject-matter of the sale, was at the time of the sale in that state and was sold by plaintiff to one Tift in that state, to be paid for on delivery; that it was delivered to him in that state in pursuance of the contract of sale, but that, without paying for it, said Tift sold and delivered it in that state to the defendant, who had disposed of it before the bringing of the suit. It is plain, therefore, from the averments of the complaint, that, under the laws of the state of Georgia (in which state the property was situated, where its owner was domiciled, and where the defendant went and purchased and received it), the defendant acquired no' title to the property; and it seems to us it would be a strange comity that we would show our sister state were we to say that, because the defendant is a citizen of Alabama, where different laws prevail as to the purchase and acquisition of title to personal property that is within its jurisdiction, these laws should folloAV defendant and measure his rights when he goes into the state of Georgia and purchases personal property there that is within and is subject to the jurisdiction and control of that state. If the property iiad been brought or shipped into this state by the original buyer, Tift, and purchased here by de[534]*534fendant in good faith for value, there would be more show of reason for contending that defendant’s rights should be governed by the laws of Alabama; but when he goes into the state of Georgia and buys and receives there personal property that is subject to its jurisdiction, then the fact that he is a citizen of Alabama, or that he subsequently removes the property to this jurisdiction, will not, under the rules of either comity or policy, confer title when title was not acquired under the laws of the state where the purchase was made.

The specific public policy of this state, as expressed in its laws, before pointed out, regulating the sale, transfer, and acquisition of title to personal property, has reference to such property as is within its jurisdiction and control, and not to property that is within the jurisdiction and control of another state. With reference to the latter, the public policy of this state is to enforce the general rule of comity existing between states by giving operation and effect to the laws of the state that had such jurisdiction and control at the time of the sale; and if this course results in what-appellee incorrectly terms “an injury to a resident of this state,” it is a legal or lawful injury — if such a self-contradictory expression may be used — of which he cannot complain; and which, it may be added, he voluntarily brought upon himself by going into and submitting himself, in the making of the purchase, to the laws of the foreign state, the existence of which he is conclusively presumed to have known at the time of the purchase, since at such time he was within said state. The rules of comity with respect to the sale of personal property are thus succinctly stated in 9 Cyc. 682, par.

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Related

Samford University v. City of Homewood
959 So. 2d 64 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 2006)
Albany Warehouse Co. v. F. B. Fisk Cotton Co.
76 So. 988 (Alabama Court of Appeals, 1917)
Paterson v. Bridges
75 So. 260 (Alabama Court of Appeals, 1917)
Ex parte F. B. Fisk Cotton Co.
191 Ala. 661 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1915)

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Bluebook (online)
67 So. 728, 12 Ala. App. 527, 1914 Ala. App. LEXIS 280, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/albany-warehouse-co-v-f-b-fisk-cotton-co-alactapp-1914.