George F. Hinrichs, Inc. v. Standard Trust & Savings Bank

279 F. 382, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1553
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJanuary 18, 1922
DocketNo. 39
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 279 F. 382 (George F. Hinrichs, Inc. v. Standard Trust & Savings Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
George F. Hinrichs, Inc. v. Standard Trust & Savings Bank, 279 F. 382, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1553 (2d Cir. 1922).

Opinion

ROGERS, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). It appears that Grant Bros. & Co. was, in January, 1920, wholesale dealers in butter, eggs and poultry in Chicago, and did its banking business with the Standard Trust & Savings Bank in that city — the plaintiff in this action. Grant Bros, shipped a carload of eggs by rail, consigned to the defendant at New York, taking a straight bill of lading therefor. Thereupon Grant Bros, obtained from the plaintiff a sight draft, payable to its order and drawn on defendant, in the sum of $8,424, to which the bill of lading and invoice was attached. The bill of lading named the defendant as consignee. The plaintiff credited the account of Grant Bros, with the amount of the draft, and forwarded it with the bill of lading and the invoice to its correspondent in New York for presentation to defendant, and payment was refused. The defendant sold the eggs on their arrival in New York, paid themselves out of the proceeds a debt .due to them from Grant Bros., and remitted the balance to the latter.

The plaintiff brought this action on the theory that it acquired title to the eggs when it took tire bill of lading from Grant Bros, and advanced to the latter $8,424, and that defendant acquired no right in the eggs and could not sell them, having declined to pay the draft drawn on it. The defendant claims that, as the bill of lading was a “straight” bill of lading, and not an “order” bill of lading, the title to the eggs was in it as consignee, and that it had the right to pursue the course it took. The defendant says that, having sold the eggs and paid the proceeds over to Grant Bros., it ought not now to be required to pay the plaintiff, as it would be paying for the eggs twice over. This is, of course, no answer. If defendant with notice paid the money to one not entitled to receive it, it may be compelled now to pay to the rightful owner what it wrongfully paid to another.

The Act of August 29, 1916, known as the Bills of Lading Act (Comp. St. §§ 8604aaa-8604w), applies, as the shipment was in interstate commerce. 39 Stat. p. 538, c. 415. Section 2 of the act provides that a bill in which it is stated that the goods are consigned or destined to a specified person is a straight bill; and section 3 provides that a [385]*385bill in which it is stated that the goods are consigned or destined to the order of any person named in such bill is an order bill. The bill of lading issued to the shipper in the transaction herein involved stated that the goods were “consigned to Geo. F. Hinrichs & Co.,” and their destination was New York. It was therefore a straight bill of lading.

The act also provides in section 3 that any provision in an order bill that it is nonnegotiable shall be null and void, and shall not affect its negotiability, unless upon its face and in writing it is agreed to by the shipper; and section 6 provides that a straight bill shall have placed plainly upon its face by the carrier issuing it “nonnegotiable” or “not negotiable.” The evident intention of the act is to make straight bills nonnegotiable and order bills negotiable; and subsequent sections of the act provide how order bills may be negotiated and as to the rights acquired under a negotiated order bill. We need not concern ourselves with such provisions as the bill here in question is not an order bill.

Section 29 of the act provides as follows:

“That a bill may he transferred by the holder by delivery, accompanied with an agreement, express or implied, to transfer the title to the bill or to the goods represented thereby. A straight hill cannot he negotiated free from existing equities, and the indorsement of such a bill gives the transferee no additional right.”

And section 32 provides in part as follows:

“That a person to whom a bill has been transferred, hut not negotiated, acquires thereby as against the transferor the title to the goods, subject to the terms of any agreement with the transferor. If the bill is a straight bill such person also acquires the right to notify the carrier of the transfer to him of such bill and thereby to become the direct obligee of whatever obligations the carrier owed to the transferor of the bill immediately before the notification. * * * ”

It appears, then, that the carrier delivered to Grant Bros, a straight bill of lading, which was nonnegotiable, and that Grant Bros, transferred it to the plaintiff, and that under the act of Congress the plaintiff acquired such right in the goods as Grant Bros, had, subject to existing equities, with a right to notify the carrier of the transfer to the plaintiff made by the original holder of the bill, and thereby to become the direct obligee of whatever obligation the carrier owed to the transferor of the bill immediately before the notification. But in this case no notification was given to the carrier, and it delivered the eggs to the defendant, as it was entitled to do under the terms of the shipment.

[ 1 ] The question thus presented is as to the right of the defendant, who was a factor consignee, to make the sale after it had notice that the bill of lading and a draft accompanying it had been transferred previously to the plaintiff. The evidence shows that Grant Bros., as owners of the eggs, shipped them to the defendant at New York to sell on commission; that the plaintiff acquired title to the bill of lading and accompanying draft from the shippers on January 22, 1920; that the draft was presented to the defendant on January 26th, who refused to pay it; that defendant received the eggs on January 28th, and sóld them on February 4th and 11th, which was after it had knowledge of the draft.

[386]*386According to the settled principles of commercial law, which in this respect is not changed by the Bill of Lading Act, the consignee named in the bill of lading issued to Grant Bros, was constituted their authorized agent to receive the goods, and no person but such consignee could by an indorsement of the straight bill of lading pass the legal title to the goods. But as the shipper was in this case the owner of the goods, and the shipment was on his own account, while he could not pass the title by a transfer of the bill of lading, not being named therein as consignee, yet he could pass the legal title to the bill of lading, and it would be good, not only as against his agents and factors, but as against his creditors. See Conard v. Atlantic Insurance Co., 1 Pet. 386, 445, 7 L. Ed. 189.

By mercantile law a bill of lading is a symbolic representation of the goods therein described. Shaw v. Railroad Co., 101 U. S. 557, 25 L. Ed. 892; Michigan Central R. Co. v. Phillips, 60 Ill. 190; Brown v. Foersheim Mercantile Co., 206 Mass. 373, 92 N. E. 494. As it is said in Shaw v. Railroad Co., supra, 101 U. S. 565, 25 L. Ed. 892:

“Bills of lading are regarded as so much cotton, grain, iron, or other articles of merchandise. The merchandise is very often sold or pledged by the transfer of the bills which cover it.”

Where A, the shipper, takes a bill of lading and names himself as consignee, he retains title to the goods. If he names B. as consignee, the title to the goods is in B. But in both cases he has an effective hold upon the goods, for in the latter case he has a right of possession analogous to a lien, which he can exercise prior to the actual delivery of the goods to B. by the carrier. See Williston on Sales, p. 436.

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Bluebook (online)
279 F. 382, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1553, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/george-f-hinrichs-inc-v-standard-trust-savings-bank-ca2-1922.