First Nat. Bank of Cushing v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co.

1920 OK 16, 186 P. 1086, 77 Okla. 93, 1920 Okla. LEXIS 192
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJanuary 13, 1920
Docket9461
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 1920 OK 16 (First Nat. Bank of Cushing v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
First Nat. Bank of Cushing v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 1920 OK 16, 186 P. 1086, 77 Okla. 93, 1920 Okla. LEXIS 192 (Okla. 1920).

Opinion

BAILEY, J.

This action was commenced in the district court of Payne county. Oklahoma, on the 24th day of July, 1915, by plaintiff in error, as plaintiff below, against the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, a corporation, defendant in error, defendant below, to recover possession of two certain mules. Thereafter, on the 25th day of August, 1915, Davis & Younger, interven-ers, filed their petition in intervention. The parties will be hereafter referred to as they appeared in the trial court.

Plaintiff predicates its right to recover the possession of said mules upon a certain chattel mortgage executed to it by one John Bell, on the 8th day of May 1915, and in which said mortgage there is described: “One black mare mule, 7 years old, weight 1,500 pounds. One black mare mule, 8 years old, weight 1,400 . pounds” — together with other property. The facts presented by the record are briefly as follows:

After executing mortgage on the 8th day of May, 1915, as above referred to, John Bell, on the 19th day of June, 1915, committed suicide, and in a few days thereafter the mules in controversy were taken from the possession of the Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., while under consignment, with other property, to fie transported to the state of Texas. The *94 manner and method by which the mules in question were secured from the railway company is not clear from the record before us. It appears, however, that on the 24th day of July, 1915, that said mules were again delivered to the possession of the railway company, and immediately thereafter this action was instituted, and the mules taken into his possession by the sheriff of Payne county, and after the elapse of 24 hours, delivered to plaintiff. Davis & Younger, interveners, filed their petition, wherein they alleged that they were the owners, and entitled to the immediate possession of said mules, and that the mules in controversy, were on the 24th day of September, 1914, mortgaged by one R. S. McOonkey to the Stillwater National Bank, of Stillwater, Okla., and thereafter sold by the said Stillwater National Bank to W. H. Bodenhamer, and purchased for the said in-terveners by the agents of said interveners, and that said mules had been delivered by the agents of said interveners to the Atchison, T. & S. E. R. Oo. and that the said plaintiff unlawfully retained the possession of said property, and that said property was reasonably worth $450. Thereafter the plaintiff moved the court to strike the petition of in-terveners, “for the reason that said petition of intervention does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of intervention in the above entitled action.” Said motion to strike was overruled, the court at the same time directing that interveners attach a copy of the mortgage which was alleged to have been executed by MteConkey to the Stillwater National Bank. Thereafter an amended petition was filed by interveners, in which amended petition, in addition to the allegations hereinabove set forth, it was also alleged “that said mortgage given to the Stillwater National Bank was by said bank filed of record in the office of the register of deeds of Payne county, Oklahoma, and numbered (32400) thirty-two thousand four hundred, and filed and entered in the chattel mortgage index, in volume 9, on the 8th day of October, 1914, at 2 o’clock and 16 minutes p. m., in said register of deeds office.” To which amended petition of intervention plaintiff thereafter filed its answer, generally and specifically denying the allegations therein, not inconsistent • with the allegations of its petition.

The railway company filed its unverified answer, consisting of a general denial. The cause being regularly set for hearing, a jury was demanded, regularly empaneled, and at the beginning of the trial the defendant railway company, by its attorneys, announced that it disclaimed any right, title, and interest in and to the property in controversy, except such right as it may nave by reason of the property having been delivered to it for transportation. A verdict was returned for the interveners, and from judgment thereon, the cause is appealed.

The contention of the plaintiff as stated in the pleadings may be summarized as follows: That the mules in controversy were the mules of John Bell, deceased, and that the description contained in plaintiff’s mortgage was a sufficient and accurate description of such property, and that if such mules had ever been mortgaged to the Stillwater National Bank, no mortgage of record and executed to said -bank by said McOonkey furnished any sufficient description of the property in controversy, and that said plaintiff, by its agents and representatives, were without any knowledge or legal notice of any claim held by the Stillwater National Bank. While by the in-terveners it is contended that the mules in controversy were sufficiently and specifically described in the mortgage held by the Still-water National Bank, and that said property, under the terms and conditions of said mortgage, had been sold to interveners’ vendors; that the deceased, John Bell, was never the owner of said property, and even if plaintiff bank had accepted a mortgage upon said property, that said mortgagee took said mortgage impressed with notice of a valid and prior mortgage held by the Stillwater National Bank. It is contended by plaintiff that the trial court erred in permitting intervenors to introduce in evidence the mortgage given to the Stillwater National Bank by McOonkey, for the reason the court, by the order hereinbe-above referred to, had ordered and directed the interveners to attach a copy of said mortgage, and that said interveners had failed and refused to attach the same to their pleading. It will be noted, however, that inter-veners did file an amended petition in intervention in which it was alleged that said mortgage could not be attached for the reasons therein shown, and it appears from the evidence in the case that the original mortgage had been withdrawn from file and passed into the possession of parties whose whereabouts were unknown until the day previous to the trial. Aside from this, the record does not disclose that plaintiff was in anywise mislead or prejudiced by reason of a failure to so attach said exhibit, but, upon the contrary, the record affirmatively shows that plaintiff was fully advised and appraised of the claim of interveners, by reason of the existence of such mortgage and the property therein described.

It is next contended that the court erred in allowing interveners to exercise certain peremptory challenges to the jury. It is sufficient to say, however, that an examination *95 of the record discloses nothing with reference to such proceedings.

Plaintiff further complains of the instruction given by the court wherein the court instructed the jury as follows:

“You are instructed that after the due filing of a chattel mortgage in the recording office as provided by law, third parties are charged with notice of the contents thereof to the same extent as if they had actual notice, and are charged with notice of anything in the instrument connected with the description of the mortgaged property which suggests inquiry as to the identity of the property intended to be mortgaged and which inquiry, if pursued, would lead to an identification of the property.”

The instruction given is the identical language of the rule announced in First National Bank of Washington v. Haines, No.

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Bluebook (online)
1920 OK 16, 186 P. 1086, 77 Okla. 93, 1920 Okla. LEXIS 192, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/first-nat-bank-of-cushing-v-atchison-t-s-f-r-co-okla-1920.