Brooklyn Cooperage Co. v. Cora Planting & Mfg. Co.

69 So. 195, 137 La. 807, 1915 La. LEXIS 1757
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMay 24, 1915
DocketNo. 21179
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 69 So. 195 (Brooklyn Cooperage Co. v. Cora Planting & Mfg. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brooklyn Cooperage Co. v. Cora Planting & Mfg. Co., 69 So. 195, 137 La. 807, 1915 La. LEXIS 1757 (La. 1915).

Opinions

LAND, J.

The Brooklyn Cooperage Company sued the defendant company for the sum of $1,785 for the price of 1,400 molasses barrels furnished for the purpose of putting on the market its crops 'of sugar and molasses for the season of 1913.

[809]*809Plaintiff claimed a privilege as a furnisher of necessary plantation supplies under O. O. 3217, and also a vendor’s privilege on barrels on hand, and sued out a writ of sequestration under which the sheriff seized 530 barrels of sugar, 44 barrels of molasses, 4 tanks of molasses, and 528 filled and empty molasses barrels.

The Ozark Cooperage & Lumber Company followed with- a similar suit and seizure for a balance of $1,423 for certain cooperage stock and material furnished to the defendant company, claiming a privilege as furnish-er of supplies on the crops of 1913, and also a vendor’s privilege on whatever of said stock and material remained in the possession of the defendant. Under the writ of sequestration the sheriff seized, in addition to what had already been seized under the first writ, 485 empty sugar barrels.

Numerous interventions and oppositions were filed claiming privileges on the sugar and molasses under seizure.

J. Aron & Co. appeared, and under a claim of ownership bonded out 530 barrels of sugar under seizure, and a few days later intervened in the suit.

This intervener alleged a purchase of 600 barrels of sugar from the defendant company on December 16, 1913, “f. o. b. plantation,” payment of the price, and a subsequent sale and removal of 75 barrels of the sugar.

Burkenroad-Goldsmith Company also intervened, claiming ownership of 200 barrels of the sugar by purchases from J. Aron & Co.

Holly Heyn intervened, first claiming a privilege on the crop as “sugar chemist and head overseer” in defendant’s factory, and later as overseer of the plantation.

H. Grabenheimer intervened, and sued for a balance of $2,245.86, with privilege on the crops of 1913, for necessary plantation supplies furnished to the defendant company. Levy, Loeb & Co. also intervened, ..suing for $1,011.43, and claiming a like privilege on the crops. Z. T. Erie, Jr., and Wiley Hampton severally intervened, claiming privileges as the vendor of sugar cane, under Act No. 27 of 1894, on the sugar and molasses seized by the plaintiffs.

Mrs. B. Powers intervened, claiming a privilege on the sugar and molasses under seizure as the furnisher of meals and supxfiies for the use of laborers on the defendant’s plantation.

A. A. Brown, as sheriff, agent, etc., intervened and claimed $177 for cane delivered to the defendant, with the statutory privilege on the sugar and molasses of the crop of 1913. The foregoing include all the interventions discussed in the brief of the two plaintiffs and appellants. Other interventions were filed, and some of them were allowed, but plaintiff’s brief refers to none of them, except that of W. J. Blanchard, which was dismissed.

The judgment below rejected the claims of J. Aron & Co., Burkenroad-Goldsmith Company, Holly Heyn, and W. J. Blanchard, and allowed the respective claims of the two plaintiffs, and, in whole or part, the claims of H. Grabenheimer, Levy, Loeb & Co., A. A. Brown, sheriff and agent, Wiley Hampton, Mrs. B. Powers, and Z. T. Earle, Jr. Plaintiffs’ and appellants’ objections to the judgment below are confined to the six claims last mentioned.

[1] The first issue in logical order relates to the sale and delivery of the 600 barrels of sugar by the defendant company to J. Aron & Co. in December, 1913. This sale was made through J. C. Murphy & Sons, brokers, of the city of New Orleans. The invoices read “E. o. b. Pint.” The receipts for the price read: “Cora sugars f. o. b. plantation and now stored in Cora factory for account and at the risk of J. Aron & Co.” In January, 1914, J. Aron & Co. sold and shipped out 75 barrels, and during the same month sold to the [811]*811Burkenroad-Goldsmith Company 200 barrels “f. o. b. cars” out oí the 600 barrels of sugar purchased for the defendant company.

The same 200 barrels were seized in the sugar house on the' Cora plantation.

The judge below held that the evidence did not show an actual delivery of the 525 barrels of sugar purchased by J. Aron & Co. from the defendant company. There was no change in the physical possession of the sugar, and, if there was any delivery, it was merely constructive. A sale of movables without actual delivery does not affect third persons, and the property is liable in the hands of the vendor to seizure and attachment in behalf of his creditors. C. C. 1922, 1923.

[2] Even conceding that the sugar was delivered on the plantation, but not removed therefrom, it was still subject to the privileges on the crops of the year. National Bank of Commerce v. Sullivan, 117 La. 163, 41 South. 480. All the justices concurred in the opinion in that case as far as applicable to the facts. In Loeb v. Collier, 131 La. 377, 59 South. 816, a farmer deposited a bale of cotton raised by him with a compress company, and subsequently sold the bale to a merchant, who in due- course sold the bale to the plaintiff, a cotton buyer. Under this state of facts, the court held that the privilege of the furnisher of supplies on the bale of cotton had been lost. Loeb v. Collier affirms Bank of Commerce v. Sullivan, but holds that the doctrine of the latter does not apply where the product has been removed from the farm, and by sale and resale has entered the channels of trade and become merchandise. There is no provision of the Civil Code which declares that privileges on crops are extinguished by sales, but, as held in Loeb v. Collier, such privileges are lost when not asserted in time to prevent the products on which they rest from becoming articles of commerce. But no such state of facts is presented in the instant case, and therefore the 525 barrels of sugar on the plantation, even if sold, remained subject to the privileges on the crops of 1913.

[3] Holly Heyn filed an intervention claiming a balance of $2,670.63 for salary as sugar chemist and head overseer of the sugar factory of the defendant, and a privilege as laborer and overseer on the crops of the year 1913. This intervention was dismissed on an exception of no cause of action. Intervener acquiesced in this ruling, and was permitted to file another petition of intervention, claiming the same amount of defendant “as head overseer or manager of its Cora and Annandale plantations, * * * and its sugar refinery situated on said Cora plantation,” with overseer’s privilege on the crops of the year. The intervener alleged error and mistake in the allegation of his first‘petition that he was employed “as sugar chemist and head overseer in the factory of the defendant.”

To this petition plaintiffs excepted that it was nothing but an amendment to the original petition, and came too late after the judgment sustaining the exception of no cause of action. Plaintiffs’ exception was overruled, and the intervention was put at issue.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
69 So. 195, 137 La. 807, 1915 La. LEXIS 1757, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brooklyn-cooperage-co-v-cora-planting-mfg-co-la-1915.