Belle Springs Creamery Co. v. Schultz

69 S.W.2d 564, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 1445
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 10, 1934
DocketNo. 11440.
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 69 S.W.2d 564 (Belle Springs Creamery Co. v. Schultz) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Belle Springs Creamery Co. v. Schultz, 69 S.W.2d 564, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 1445 (Tex. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

BOND, Justice.

H. M. Schultz instituted this suit against the Belle Springs Creamery Company, a corporation of Abilene, Kan., to recover damages arising out of a purchase of eggs, and to effect collection sued out a writ of garnishment, directed to the First National Bank of Dallas, to impound funds in its possession. By its answer to the writ, the garnishee vouched in the suit the Citizens’ Bank of Abilene, Kan., as claimant to the funds. The Kansas Bank answered, claiming the funds impounded. For convenience, H. M. Schultz will be referred to as plaintiff, the Belle Springs Creamery Company as defendant, the First National Bank of Dallas as Dallas Bank, and the Citizens’ Bank of Abilene, Kan., as Kansas Bank.

The record reveals that, on March 26, 1931, defendant sold to plaintiff 400 cases of eggs, for which plaintiff agreed to pay $2,400. The introduction of the contracting parties was brought about through W. W. Butler, an independent broker. Their contractual relationship, however, is based on written instruments ; defendant mailing to plaintiff an invoice of the eggs it had for sale, an inspection certificate describing the eggs and a warehouse warrant, or certificate, embodying the terms and conditions of storage, and, in turn, plaintiff mailing to defendant a check for $400, with a note for $2,000, in payment thereof. There is no further evidence of the contract between the parties.

The invoice recites the sale of 400 cases slack-packed eggs, the terms and conditions for - payment, and stipulates that the seller should pay the storage and insurance; the inspection certificate describes the eggs sold, as being of “good quality, medium to large size, mixed color, sweet odor and graded slack storage,” and states that some of the eggs were “dirty, stained, small, seconds and checks”; and the warehouse warrant, o;- certificate, specified that the eggs were received in the seller’s cold-storage building in Abilene, Kan., for storage to December 31, 1931, subject to the buyer's order, on payment of $2,000, the seller to carry insurance in the sum of $2,250, and that the conditions of such storage are that: (1) “All loss or damage to property occasioned by fire, water, leakage or rottage is at owner’s risk and this company is not responsible for -shrinkage in weight.” (2) “All property is stored at owner’s risk, condition and quality unknown.” And (3) “no delivery of goods specified upon the reverse side of this warrant will be made unless order is accompanied by this warehouse receipt.” On these proposals and conditions rests defendant’s covenants, and in accordance therewith plaintiff paid the $100 cash and delivered to defendant his promissory note for $2,000, payable “on demand,” and bearing interest from -date of the purchase until paid.

On September 26, 1931, on demand, plaintiff paid on'said note $200 with interest, as a margin for the decline in the egg market, and delivered to defendant an $1,800 renewal note for the balance due; this note was made payable “on demand,” to bear interest from date thereof, and to further provide that the eggs were pledged and delivered to defendant as collateral security for the payment of said note, and to contain' accelerated clauses, effecting the* maturity of the 1 note in case of insecurity or loss of the eggs pledged, authorizing a sale by the pledgee, in the event of a decline in value, or failure of the pledgor to pay margin on such decline, and to evidence ownership of the eggs to be in plaintiff, subject to defendant’s lien.

On December 10, 1931, plaintiff ordered the eggs shipped, and defendant delivered them to the railroad company at Abilene, Kan., for transportation to Dallas,' Tex., receiving therefor a bill of lading. Defendant attached the bill of lading to a draft drawn on plaintiff, for the sum of $2,052.85, which amount included the principal of the $1,800 note, $24.37 interest, $220.48 freight, and $S for two tons of ice, used in the freight car containing the eggs. On arrival of the eggs at Dallas, December 12, 1931, plaintiff paid the draft, inspected the eggs, and found a -material deterioration in quality, affecting their value; that they were mouldy, “whiskered,” spoiled; that water had accumulated in the cases about the eggs; and that they were neither sweet-odored nor sweet-tasting, and some testimony is to the effect that such condition, was due to “improper storage.”

The eggs were candled, sorted, graded, and sold by plaintiff on the Dallas market, considering only plaintiff’s proof, at a considerable reduction from a reasonable market value of the eggs; had they arrived in Dallas in first-class condition, such market value would *566 have been from $8 to $8.50 per case, where the maximum salvage value of the eggs, upon their arrival at Dallas, was $4.57 per case, plaintiff realizing only $1,700 from the entire shipment.

Subsequent to the arrival of plaintiff’s shipment, the A. Rubenstein Produce Company also purchased 'from the Belle Springs Creamery Company a similar shipment, subject to inspection at Dallas. The 'bill of lading attached to draft on the Rubenstein Company for $2,055.18, payable to the Citizens’ Bank of Abilene, Kan.; the draft was deposited by the Kansas Bank to the credit of the drawer, the Belle Springs Creamery Company, subject to the depositor’s check, and in turn the Kansas Bank forwarded the draft and bill of lading through the' usual banking channels, to the First National Bank of Dallas, for collection. On an inspection of the shipment, the purchaser declined to accept, until the seller reduced the amount of the draft, and, in accordance therewith, the Kansas Bank authorized the Dallas Bank to reduce the draft by $300. The modified draft was paid and, before a remittitur of the proceeds could be made by the Dallas iBank to the Kansas Bank, the writ of garnishment was served on the collecting bank.

On trial before the court, without the intervention of a jury, judgment for $1,100 was rendered for plaintiff (Schultz) against defendant (Creamery Company), and for plaintiff against intervener (Kansas Bank), and the garnishee (Dallas Bank), for the amount of the judgment thus rendered against defendant, allowing the garnishee $150 as attorney’s fee for making its answer in the garnishment suit, payable out of the impounded funds.

In disposing of this appeal, we will consider first the garnishment phase of the suit, and in this we are led by the authorities of this 'and other jurisdictions to follow the rule of law that the rights, obligations, and interpretation of contracts are determinable by the law of the state where the cgoiract_ was^aadfij unless a different forum is shown to hayg, to be the. place of performance. The draft was deposited by defendant (Creamery Company) with the Kansas Bank,ll subject to defendant’s check; thus,, in our opinion, the rights of defendant and the Kansas Bank are settled by the laws of that state. In the case of Burdg v. Scott, 111 Kan. 610, 203 P. 668, the question there centered around the ownership of property, represented by bills of lading attached to drafts, deposited in a bank, for which the depositor received credit on the bank’s books, subject to check. In passing on the ownership of the property, the court stated, in effect that, after the drafts were taken by the bank as a deposit and placed to the credit of Scott (the depositor), the wheat became its property, citing as thoroughly settling the question the decisions in Scott v. W. H. McIntyre Co., 93 Kan. 508, 144 P. 1002, L. R. A. 1915D, 139; Farmers’ & Merchants’ Nat. Bank v. Sprout, 104 Kan. 348, 179 P.

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Bluebook (online)
69 S.W.2d 564, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 1445, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/belle-springs-creamery-co-v-schultz-texapp-1934.