Cook v. Robinson

194 F. 753, 114 C.C.A. 473, 3 Alaska Fed. 805, 1912 U.S. App. LEXIS 1214
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMarch 18, 1912
DocketNo. 2,012
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 194 F. 753 (Cook v. Robinson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cook v. Robinson, 194 F. 753, 114 C.C.A. 473, 3 Alaska Fed. 805, 1912 U.S. App. LEXIS 1214 (9th Cir. 1912).

Opinion

WOLVERTON, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above).

The first contention of plaintiff is that the garnishee’s motion to dismiss the proceedings upon which the judgment is based at the close of plaintiff’s case was tantamount to a motion for a directed verdict, and, the garnishee not having rested its case, the motion should have been denied. The action of the District Court is fully sustained by the case of Bunt v. Sierra Butte Gold Mining Co., 138 U.S. 483, 11 S.Ct. 464, 34 L.Ed. 1031, which was an action to recover for personal injuries. There the defendant moved at the close of the plaintiff’s case for a directed verdict in its favor, which was granted, and the judgment was affirmed, it being expressly declared that the court rightly directed a verdict for the defendant.

The next contention is that the garnishee having tendered the issue nulla bona, without having pleaded matter in avoidance, it will not be heard to set up the right of the Howards to the proceeds of the gold dust, the subject of the controversy. This contention proceeds upon the hypothesis that Robinson first sold the gold dust to the bank, and that the bank received the proceeds to the credit of Robinson, and that thereafter, if the Howards acquired any interest therein whatever, Robinson transferred such proceeds to them, and that the garnishee cannot avail itself of the fact of such transfer without pleading it. A sufficient answer to this is, if the judgment is to stand, that plaintiff proved defendant’s case, and from the showing made he was not entitled to recover as against the garnishee. [817]*817The plaintiff could not have been misled by the answer for the garnishee’s answer to the interrogatories propounded by plaintiff set forth the real transaction.

The third contention relates to the findings of the court. The case having been tried without the intervention of a jury, the court’s findings are conclusive of the questions of fact, unless it be that there is no evidence to support them. The rule is that the findings of fact of the court, whether special or general, will not be disturbed if there is any evidence upon which such findings could be made. Stanley v. Supervisors of Albany, 121 U.S. 535, 547, 7 S.Ct. 1234, 30 L.Ed. 1000; Hathaway v. First National Bank, 134 U.S. 494, 10 S.Ct. 608, 33 L.Ed. 1004; Lehnen v. Dickson, 148 U.S. 71, 73, 13 S.Ct. 481, 37 L.Ed. 373; and Dooley v. Pease, 180 U.S. 126, 131, 21 S.Ct. 329, 45 L.Ed. 457. It is not contended that the conclusions of law should have been different upon the facts found, but that the facts found are not supported by the evidence.

The proposition that there was first a sale of the gold dust by Robinson to the bank does not seem to us to affect the case vitally. Robinson had been accustomed to take his dust to the bank, and through an understanding between the parties the bank took the dust, and, when weighed, allowed Robinson $17.60 per ounce for it, and credit was given as if Robinson had deposited so much money with the bank. So that under the usual way when Robinson took the dust to the bank he would have received credit for it as cash deposited. There is no evidence in the case tending to show that the gold dust in question was to be treated differently than had been usual theretofore, and we may assume for the purposes of this case that, when the dust was delivered to the manager of the bank by Robinson, a sale took place, leaving only the value to be determined by weighing, that there was a conversion of the gold dust into money, and that henceforth the parties were dealing with the money, and not the dust. Even upon this premise the real question for consideration is, What did Robinson do with the money? Did he deposit it to his own credit, or did he deposit it to the credit of the Howards to apply to the payment of his indebtedness to them? It is strongly urged that the transaction — that is, what was [818]*818done — did not amount to an appropriation of the money to the payment of Robinson’s indebtedness to the Howards, but was only a deposit with instructions to the bank to make the payments through the issuance of the certificates of deposit, that, therefore, the proposed payments on the part of Robinson to the Howards were yet incomplete, and for what was to be done in the way of issuing the certificates the bank was constituted the agent of Robinson and not of the Howards, and that until the certificates were issued and accepted by the Howards the money remained the property of Robinson, subject to garnishment in the hands of the bank by plaintiff.

It is a principle of law perhaps beyond controversy that “where money is paid by A., into the hands of B., to remain at the disposal of C, the right to that money continues in A. until B. gives and C. takes credit for it, or B. actually pays it to C. Up to this period, B. is the agent of A. only, and A. may countermand the authority to make the payment.” Trustees of Howard College v. Pace, 15 Ga. 486. In support of the principle the court quotes from Addison on Contracts, as follows: “But in all cases where money is sent to one person, to be paid by him to another, to enable the person who is the object of the remittance, to maintain an action against the remittee, to recover the amount transmitted to him, there must be an express promise or assent, on the part of the latter, to pay over the money to the former, or hold it to his use, inasmuch as the mandate is revocable, so long as no such assent, promise, or engagement has been given or entered into” — citing authorities.

Thereupon the court further observes that: “When, however, the assent has been given, and the attornment made, the order to pay the money, if founded on a precedent debt or other good consideration, becomes irrevocable.”

So in a later case in the same court it is held that: “When A. deposits money in a bank, with directions that it is to be paid out to a check which he has given, or will give to C., the money is still the money of A. until the bank either pays it, or promises C. to pay it, or unless it be deposited at the instance or procurement of C., or under an arrangement with him.” Mayer & Lowenstein v. Chattahoochee National Bank, 51 Ga. 325.

[819]*819The court then proceeds to the exceptions to the rule, about which it says: “The exceptions to the rule are special cases, as where the person to whom the money is ordered to be paid is interested in the consideration, or has himself procured, or directed, or agreed, that the deposit shall be made for his benefit. In such cases the depositor may be considered only as the agent of the party at interest in making the deposit and in contracting with the bailee for its delivery or payment to the true owner or beneficiary, and he, the depositor, loses control over it immediately on the deposit. In fact, it is not his deposit at all, but left for the true owner as agent.”

The principle is reaffirmed in Bluthenthal et al. v. Silverman, 113 Ga. 102, 38 S.E. 344. See, also, Kelly v. Roberts, 40 N.Y. 432; Peak v. Ellicott, 30 Kan. 156, 1 P. 499, 46 Am.Rep. 90; Brockmeyer v. Washington National Bank, 40 Kan. 376, 19 P. 855; Simonton v. First National Bank of Minneapolis, 24 Minn.

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Bluebook (online)
194 F. 753, 114 C.C.A. 473, 3 Alaska Fed. 805, 1912 U.S. App. LEXIS 1214, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cook-v-robinson-ca9-1912.