Denny v. Faulkner

22 Kan. 89
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedJanuary 15, 1879
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 22 Kan. 89 (Denny v. Faulkner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Denny v. Faulkner, 22 Kan. 89 (kan 1879).

Opinion

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Brewer, J.:

Plaintiffs in error (plaintiffs below) commenced an action of replevin to recover the possession of •certain cattle. Judgment was rendered against them in the •district court for the value of the cattle, and they prosecute ■this proceeding in error to review such judgment.

[92]*92, , anoeo? hw?-u' mg, exceptions, [91]*91A preliminary question is raised on the record, and counsel for defendants claim that it is not in such a condition that we •can examine the alleged errors. It appears that the case was tried before a jury, at the April term, 1875, and verdict returned. A motion for a new trial was duly filed, but the hearing thereof was continued until the April term, 1876, at which time it was overruled and time given to make a case. Now it is contended that the exceptions taken to the rulings at the trial must be reduced to writing at the term; that the •continuance of the motion for a new trial does not continue the right to reduce the exceptions to writing; and that no exceptions having been reduced to writing during the term, no subsequent reduction of the exceptions to writing is of any validity. (Kline v. Wynne, 10 Ohio St. 223; Morgan v. Boyd, 13 Ohio St. 271.) Whatever might be true if the case stood upon a bill of exceptions (and unless we departed from the Ohio decisions we should be compelled to hold such a bill of exceptions of no validity), we think our statutes warrant a case-made with exceptions reduced to writing after the close of a term. There is no inherent vice in so reducing exceptions to writing; the legislature can authorize such action, and the question is one of policy only. Until the provisions [92]*92for a case-made, the statute was clear, and compelled action during the term. The court was not authorized to further extend the time. But the court is authorized generally to extend the time for making a case. No limitation is placed in the statute. Full discretion seems to have been granted. And the case-made is not the mere collection of the pleadings and previously-prepared bills of exceptions — it is itself the statement of the proceedings and evidence, or other matters, or so much thereof as is deemed necessary to present the errors complained of. (Gen. Stat., p. 737, § 547.) It is an original document, and not a compilation. Extending the time to make it, extends the time to make it completely and wholly. It may all be done on the very last day of the extended time. The testimony and exceptions may on that day for the first time be reduced to writing. This would seem logically to follow from the provisions of the general statutes. But, as if to avoid any-doubt, the legislature, in 1870, and again in 1871, amended by providing that “the exceptions stated in a case-made shall have the same effect as if they had been reduced to writing, allowed and signed by the judge at the term they were taken.” (Laws 1870, p. 169, § 2; Laws 1871, p. 274, §1.) This plainly implies that the exceptions are first reduced to writing when the case-made is prepared, and declares that they are to have the same effect as if reduced to writing at the time they were taken; and the time in which they may be so reduced to writing, is as extensive as the time for making the case. So far as the motion for a new trial is concerned, it has already ¿}eci(je(j that may be continued, and that the lapse of a term does not vitiate the motion or forfeit the rights of the moving party. (Brenner v. Bigelow, 8 Kas. 498.) We are forced therefore to an examination of the record, and the principal questions involved in it. A brief statement of the facts is necessary to a clear understanding of those questions. In the fall of 1871, the cattle in controversy belonged to O. P. Faulkner. At that time he executed the following bill of sale:

[93]*93“Union Stock Yards, Chicago, Nov. 4, 1871.
“Know all men by these presents, That I have this day bargained, sold and delivered to Denny & Bedman, of the Union stock yards, Cook county, Ill., three hundred and seventy-five (375) Texas cattle that are now feeding on my farm in Bichardson county, Nebraska. Cattle are all branded with the letter ‘B.’ O. P. Faulkner.”

This instrument, though in form an absolute bill of sale, was found by the jury to have been intended as only a security. It appears that Faulkner received some money thereon from Denny & Bedman, and shipped some cattle to them. The balance remained in his possession, at his farm in Nebraska, until his death, in May, 1872, and are the cattle in controversy. No filing or record was made of this bill of sale in Illinois, Nebraska or Kansas. May 31, 1872, O. P. Faulkner died, and on June 10th, Hedwig Faulkner, his widow, was appointed administratrix by the probate court of Bichardson county, Nebraska. During the lifetime of O. P. Faulkner, two suits were commenced against him, and a portion of these cattle taken under attachments therein by the sheriff of Bichardson county. June 17th, 1872, this action was commenced, in Brown county, Kansas. The cattle were then in Kansas, being in charge of herders employed by Faulkner in his lifetime, and continuing in the employ of the administratrix after his death. They were feeding on the range in day-time, and herded at night at the farm of one Floyd Crandall, in Brown county. The possession of the herders was the possession of the administratrix, except so far as divested by the levy under the attachment. It would seem probable, though the facts are not explicitly found, that at the time of the seizure under the attachments, the death of O. P. Faulkner, and the appointment of his administratrix, the cattle were on the Kansas side of the state line: in other words, the court proceedings were in Nebraska, and the property probably in Kansas. We say probably; for as the cattle were kept very near to the state line, they may in feeding have ranged on both sides of the line, and actually have been in Nebraska at the time of the levy and the appoint[94]*94ment of the administratrix. We may not, however, in the absence of any finding, and in the uncertainty of the testimony, assume positively the fact either way. We must treat it as an unsettled question.

2 Bui of sale construed. Upon this we remark, that the bill of sale, whether its operation and force are to be determined by the laws of Illinois, where it was executed, or those of Nebraska, where the cat-were at ^ time of its execution, or those of Kansas, where they were subsequently found, and where the litigation was had, was valid inter partes. As between Faulkner, the vendor, and Denny & Redman, the vendees, it conveyed the title to the property, as security for the advances. Had the litigation arisen during the lifetime of Faulkner, and been solely between him and Denny & Red-man, the right of possession would have been adjudged in the latter. The difference, judging from the portions of the statutes admitted in evidence, between the laws of Illinois on the one hand, and those of Kansas and Nebraska on the other, in this matter, is, that by the former such a conveyance, unaccompanied by a delivery of possession, or what is deemed an equivalent, registration, would be absolutely void as against creditors and subsequent purchasers, while by the latter, it would be simply prima fade void. (Gross’s Statutes of Illinois, 3d ed., 1869, ch. 20 — “Chattel Mortgages;” Mumford v. Canty, 50 Ill.

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Bluebook (online)
22 Kan. 89, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/denny-v-faulkner-kan-1879.