Collins v. Brown

114 P. 671, 19 Idaho 360
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 20, 1911
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 114 P. 671 (Collins v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Collins v. Brown, 114 P. 671, 19 Idaho 360 (Idaho 1911).

Opinion

AILSHIE, J.

The motion by cross-appellants to dismiss the appeal is not well taken, and is therefore denied.

In this case the plaintiff;, Orville M. Collins, has appealed from the judgment, and the defendants, T. Driscoll and John Troutman, have also appealed.

This action was commenced by the appellant for the foreclosure of a chattel mortgage executed in favor of appellant by Wilbur R. Brown and Leonard L. Brown, two of the respondents herein. The defendant Driscoll filed a cross-complaint for the foreclosure of a chattel mortgage executed against the same property by defendant Troutman. These mortgages were executed on growing crops.

In the very inception of the case, two questions of practice were presented to the trial court and are preserved and argued here. The defendant Troutman answered at length, making specific denials and traversing the allegations of the complaint at length. The defendant Driscoll thereafter filed a verified answer as follows: “Comes now the defendant herein, T. Driscoll, and for his answer to the plaintiffs’ second amended complaint on file herein, joins in the answer of John Troutman heretofore served and filed herein, and makes the same a part hereof as fully as if here set out and asks the court to be permitted to join in said answer.” This answer was followed with a prayer for relief and was duly verified. It does not appear that any order was made by the court with reference to this answer at all. The plaintiff raises the point that a codefendant cannot answer a complaint in this way where the complaint is such that it requires specific denials. We do not think the point is well taken. Our practice is cumbersome enough as it is without inviting any additional burdens. It is self-evident that a defendant who will file a verified answer in the form of the answer made by Driscoll will, if required to do so, make specific denials as required of defendants generally. Where a codefendant has filed his answer and another defendant wishes to answer to the same effect and to adopt the answer of his codefendant, we know of no statute or rule of law [364]*364which would prevent him doing so in the form and manner adopted by Driscoll in this ease, and we can see no injury that might result to anyone from such a practice.

The cross-complaint filed by Driscoll was served on the attorneys for the parties affected thereby, and was not served on the individuals in the manner in which service of process is made when an action is originally commenced. Appellant raises the question that under the provisions of see. 4188, Rev. Codes, a cross-complaint must be served upon the parties instead of upon their attorneys, and that they are entitled to the statutory time thereafter in which to answer, the same as upon the service of summons. See. 4188 provides that, ‘ ‘ The cross-complaint must be served upon the parties affected thereby, and such parties may demur or answer thereto as to the original complaint.” There can be no question about the correctness of appellant’s position with reference to the service of a cross-complaint and the time for appearance as against a party who has not appeared in the original action or who was not a party to the original action, but a different rule should prevail as to all parties to the action who have appeared in the ease. By the provisions of see. 4889, where a party has .appeared in the action by attorney, the service of notices and ether papers thereafter requiring service in the same case may be made upon the attorney, and sec. 4893 provides that, where a party resides out of the state and has appeared in an action and has no attorney resident of the state, the service may be made on the clerk for him. "Where the parties to be served by cross-complaint are already in court, there can certainly be no valid objection to the service of the cross-complaint on their attorneys instead of upon the parties personally.

This brings us to the question as to the validity of the mortgage held by the plaintiff. The appellant Collins owned a tract of some 680 acres of land near Genesee, and leased the same to the respondents Wilbur R. Brown and Leonard L. Brown for a term of five years. At the time of the lease there was about 600 acres of the tract of land that had been summer-fallowed, and the appellant also had some machinery [365]*365and stock on the farm. He sold the summer-fallowing and the machinery, stock and implements to the lessees, the Browns, for the sum of $5,000, taking seven promissory notes secured by a chattel mortgage which covered the crops thereafter to be sown and grown on the land for the full period of the lease. Under the terms of the lease, the lessor was to receive one-third of the crop as rental. The lessees raised a crop the first year of the lease, but in the second year they failed to raise any crop at all. During that year, however, they summer-fallowed about 600 acres which was ready for a crop the following year, which was the third year of the lease. Before the crop was seeded for the third year, the lessees sold and assigned their lease to the respondent John Troutman, and at the same time sold the machinery and implements and their work in summer-fallowing to Troutman for something like $3,000. Before making this sale, however, they procured from appellant a writing whereby he consented to the sale and relinquished certain rights. There is a sharp conflict, however, over the genuineness of this instrument, to which we will refer hereafter. The instrument is as follows:

“Genesee, Idaho, Dec. 26, 1907.
“This is to certify that I, O. M. Collins, the undersigned, does hereby give Wilbur Brown and Leonard Brown the right to sell their plowing or summer fallow before seeding and apply the proceeds as wages for their time and labor. Also the purchaser must comply with the terms of this lease of which this agreement is attached. This agreement becomes a part of said lease.
“ (Signed) O. M. COLLINS.”

The respondent Troutman contends that under the provisions of see. 3406 the crop raised by him was not liable to the mortgage executed by the Browns to appellant, while appellant, on the other hand, contends that this provision of the statute was never intended to invalidate a mortgage existing under circumstances such as exist in this ease. Section 3406 of the Rev. Codes provides as follows:

‘ ‘ Chattel mortgages may be made upon all property, goods or chattels, not defined by statute to be real estate, upon [366]*366growing crops, and upon crops to be sown and grown in the future; but, should the person executing mortgages upon crops to be afterward sown, fail to sow or cause the same to be sown, no lien of such mortgages shall attach to crops sown by other persons upon the lands described in said mortgages, except in so far as the mortgagors in said mortgages have or retain interests in said crops.”

It is claimed that under that portion of the section which provides that if the person who executes the mortgage on a crop which is afterward sown should “fail to sow or cause the same to be sown, no lien of such mortgages shall attach to the-crop as sown by other persons upon the lands described in the mortgage,” etc., the crop sown and raised by Troutman is not liable for appellant’s mortgage. It is also claimed by counsel for Troutman that under the instrument executed by appellant authorizing the sale herein, appellant waived his. right of mortgage even if he would have otherwise had any right.

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Bluebook (online)
114 P. 671, 19 Idaho 360, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/collins-v-brown-idaho-1911.