Braithwaite v. Akin

56 N.W. 133, 3 N.D. 365, 1893 N.D. LEXIS 31
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 24, 1893
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 56 N.W. 133 (Braithwaite v. Akin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Braithwaite v. Akin, 56 N.W. 133, 3 N.D. 365, 1893 N.D. LEXIS 31 (N.D. 1893).

Opinion

Corliss, J.

This case is no stranger in this court. In various forms it has already been before us several times. 1 N. D. 455, 475, 48 N. W. Rep. 354, 361; 2 N. D. 57, 49 N. W. Rep. 419. On this appeal we have to deal with the rights of the interveners and the plaintiff. The defendants are no longer interested in the contests of the cause. Their liability to the plaintiff and the interveners has been finally established, and now the only strife is between the interveners and the plaintiff over the judgment they have recovered. By their complaint in intervention, the interveners have ingrafted upon the original suit another controversy. In that controversy they have become plaintiffs, and the plaintiff [368]*368has become defendant. To their complaint in intervention, the plaintiff Braithwaite interposed an answer, which embodied two counterclaims. Other matters appear in the answer, but upon this appeal we have to decide only the question whether these counterclaims set forth in the answer are such counterclaims as the defendant Braithwaite had a right to interpose to the claim' of the interveners. There is no contention that the first counterclaim does not contain facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action; but it is urged that this claim which the defendant Braithwaite seeks to set off against the interveners’ claim to the judgment is not a legal counterclaim under the statute. The question was raised in the court below by demurrer to the answer to the complaint in intervention. From the order overruling the demurrer the interveners have appealed. The judgment in favor of the plaintiff and the interveners over which this contest is pending, was recovered in an action for freight earned by the plaintiff Braithwaite in the transportation of army stores for the defendants from Bismarck to Ft. Buford, by the steamer Eclipse. The interveners’ alleged interest in the judgment grows out of a written contract, which is fully set out in the opinion of this court in the case of Braithwaite v. Akin, 1 N. D. 475, 48 N. W. Rep. 361. The substance of the agreement was that the interveners and the defendant Braithwaite were to contribute in cash certain sums of money with which to purchase the steamer Elipse, which was about to be disposed of at judicial sale, the interveners being interested in making this purchase because of claims held by them against the steamer, which would be cut off and rendered valueless by the sale. So far as they were concerned, their sole purpose in entering in the arrangement was to save, if possible, the money which they had theretofore ventured on the security of the boat. With the fund so created, the defendant Braithwaite was to attend at the marshal’s sale, and buy the boat, taking the title in the name of himself and the intervener Joseph McC. Biggert as trustee. Under this purchase the boat was to be run by Braithwaite as captain and Biggert as financial agent; and out [369]*369of her earnings the claims of the interveners were to be paid in full, and also the sums contributed by them to the purchase fund; and thereafter the Eclipse was to be the absolute property of Braithwaite and Biggert. The interveners claim that they have not been paid in full, and that the judgment for freight earned by the steamer under this contract, or some part of the judgment, belongs to them, and they ask for an accounting. It is obvious that the interveners’ cause of action against Braithwaite, set forth in the complaint in intervention, is upon contract. The counter^ claim interposed is for the conversion of the steamboat Eclipse by the interveners. The defendant Braithwaite seeks to recover against these wrongdoes the value of his half interest on account of such conversion.

The right to set up a counterclaim rests upon statute, except in those cases which are peculiar in their nature. In those cases, equity, to prevent injustice, will allow counterclaims which the law ignores. Our first inquiry is whether the defendant Braithwaite has a right to set up this tort as a counterclaim under the statute? This brings us to the statute itself. It provides: “The counterclaim mentioned in the last section must be one existing in favor of a defendant and against a plaintiff, between whom a several judgment might be had in the action, and arising out of one of the following causes of action: First, A cause of action arising out of the contract or transaction set forth in the complaint as the foundation of plaintiff’s claim, or connected with the subject of the action. Seco?id, In an action arising on contract, any other cause of action arising also on contract and existing at the commencement of the action.” Section 4915, Comp. Laws. Under the second subdivision, any other cause of action arising on contract would constitute a good counterclaim. It is contended that the defendant Braithwaite had a right to waive the tort involved in the conversion of his interest in the steamboat, and sue in the assumpsit. The averments of the counterclaim would not bring him within the rule that a tort may be waived, as it is [370]*370laid down in many of the cases. The doctrine that the injured party may waive the tort and sue in assumpsit is limited by these decisions to' cases where the wrongdoer has sold the property, and received therefor money or money’s worth. Jones v. Hoar, 5 Pick. 290; Mhoon v. Greenfield, 52 Miss. 434; Willet v. Willet, 3 Watts, 277; Stearns v. Dillingham, 22 Vt. 624; Watson v. Stever, 25 Mich. 387; Balch v Pattee, 45 Me. 41; Kidney v. Persons, 41 Vt. 386; 1 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 888; cases in note to Webster v. Drinkwater, 17 Am. Dec. 242; Tuttle v. Campbell, 74 Mich. 652, 42 N. W. Rep. 384; Moses v. Arnold, 43 Iowa, 187. There is no allegation in the answer that the interveners ever sold the steamboat, or in any manner received money or money’s worth for her. But we are of opinion that this limitation of the doctrine that the tort may be waived is without foundation in reason or principle. The whole doctrine is built upon a fiction. It asserts that what was done in defiance of the owner’s rights was in law done with the most perfect regal'd for his rights; that the wrongdoer has received the money for the owner, or that he has bought the property from the owner at its fair value. This fiction is indulged only in the interests of the owner, and it rests upon the receipt by the wrong-' doer of benefits accruing to him from his wrongful acts. Where no benefits are received, the liability is only for the wrong. As this right in the injured party to turn the tort liability into a contract liability stands upon the receipt of benefits by the wrongdoer, is it not beneath the dignity of any tribunal to draw a distinction between the receipt of benefits in the shape of cash and the receipts of benefits in the form of property? In our judgment, the fact that a sale has not been made is unimportant. Not only upon sound principle, but also upon the foundation of strong authority, do we establish the rule in this state that the owner of property converted may waive the tort and sue in assumpsit for the benefits received whenever the tort feasor receives benefits of any kind from the wrong committed, whether by sale or by retention of the converted property, or in any other manner. Norden v. Jones, 33 Wis. 600-604; Hill v. Davis, 3 N. H. 384; Stocked v. [371]*371Watkins, 2 Gill & J. 326-342; Barker v. Cory, 15 Ohio, 9; Berley v. Taylor, 5 Hill, (N. Y.) 583; Terry v.

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Bluebook (online)
56 N.W. 133, 3 N.D. 365, 1893 N.D. LEXIS 31, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/braithwaite-v-akin-nd-1893.