Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Baldwin

262 F.2d 202
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedDecember 30, 1958
DocketNo. 16024
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 262 F.2d 202 (Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Baldwin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Baldwin, 262 F.2d 202 (8th Cir. 1958).

Opinion

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge.

The controversies in this case follow upon the failure and bankruptcy of Vernon F. Kuhlmann, or Kuhlman, formerly of Deshler, Thayer County, Nebraska, who carried on a business of buying and selling livestock at that town and others within the neighboring territory for many years, but failed to pay for a number of cattle he bought for which he gave unpaid checks to various persons during the year beginning August 31, 1951.

Prior to that date he had become the sole owner and operator of a livestock sale market at Deshler, known as Desh-ler Sales Barn, which, after some delay, had then become a certified public stockyards under the federal Packers and Stockyards Act (7 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq.). Upon such certification being made, Mr. Kuhlmann took all the necessary steps required by the Act and regulations to become a registered dealer qualified as such to buy and sell cattle at the Deshler Sales Barn and at the several federally certified public stockyards owned and operated by the appel-lees at the following Nebraska and Kansas towns, namely: Osborne Livestock Commission Company at Osborne, Kansas ; Salina Sales Pavilion at Salina, Kansas; Beverly Sales Company at Sa-lina, Kansas and Cloud County Livestock Commission Company at Concordia, Kansas. In registering as a dealer at these stockyards, Mr. Kuhlmann was required to indicate the name under which he would do business at each of the yards as a dealer, and he gave the designation “Vernon Kuhlmann d/b/a Deshler Sales Company of Deshler, Nebraska” in each of his registrations. He made no representation that the name stood for anyone other than himself and also made it clear that he would carry on the business of buying and selling cattle as a dealer at the yards, for which he was so registering, as his individual solely owned business. In order to complete his qualifications to buy and sell as a dealer at the federally regulated public yards, he was required to give a bond to secure payment for the cattle he bought there and he executed the bond here in suit to comply with that requirement. ;

The bond is entitled “General Live Stock Bond” and was executed by Mr. Kuhlmann and Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company on said date of August 31, 1951, in the penal sum of $52,000.00. It ran for one year from its date and one of its relevant conditions was:

“Applicable if Principal is Dealer * * * ” to “ * * * pay when due to the person or persons entitled thereto the purchase price for all livestock purchased by said Principal [Vernon F. Kuhlmann, d/b/a Deshler Sales Company of Deshler, Nebraska] at public stockyards as defined in the Act of Congress known as the Packers and Stockyards Act, 1921, as amended.”

Mr. W. O. Baldwin, plaintiff in this action, is the obligee named in the bond as “Trustee for all persons who may be damaged through the breach of the bond” and he is authorized by its terms to “ ■* * * maintain an action in his own name, the recovery to be made for the use of the person damaged”.

He brought this action upon the bond against the Hartford Company for the unpaid claims for cattle purchased by Mr. Kuhlmann at the named public stockyards during the period covered by the bond. The several unpaid claimants for the purchase price of the cattle purchased were also included as defendants. A true copy of the bond was attached to the complaint and it was alleged that the principal named in the bond did not perform the conditions contained in it, resulting in a breach of the bond which damaged the defendants other than the Hartford Company in an amount in excess of $52,000.00. Judgment was prayed in that amount, together with attorney fees, interest and costs. There was federal jurisdiction because the bond sued on was executed under the laws of the United States.

The defendant indemnity company admitted the execution of the bond sued on, that the bond had been breached to the [204]*204extent that the company was liable thereon and obligated to pay certain cattle owners from whom Mr. Kuhlmann had purchased cattle at the Deshler stockyards during the period and for which he had failed to pay, amounting to $2,-821.08. It tendered payments in that amount, but it denied liability to the other named parties from whom he had admittedly bought cattle during the period, at prices not in dispute, and whom he had likewise failed to pay.

The indemnity company divides these other claimants, for whose claims it denies liability, into three classes:

First: There are the four federally regulated Kansas public livestock yards at which Mr. Kuhlmann bought certain cattle at public auction during the period and gave his bad checks for the purchase price. The markets are referred to by the names of their owners. These owners recognized Mr. Kuhlmann as the registered and qualified dealer at their yards and accepted the checks he gave for the cattle and paid the amounts of the checks less commissions, etc., to the owners of the cattle. They sought re-coupment by recovery on the bond for the amounts of the checks.

Second: The three farmers; Anker Petersen; Lyle Petersen; and Lauritz M. Andersen, who claim that Mr. Kuhl-mann purchased certain livestock from them within the period at the public stockyards known as the Deshler Sales Barn — Vernon Kuhlmann Sole Owner— at Deshler, Nebraska, and gave bad checks for the purchase price. They sought recovery on the bond for their damages.

Third: Defendant-Claimant Floyd E. Boyer claimed that Kuhlmann bought 91 head of cattle from him at the Deshler public stockyards within the period of the bond, gave a bad check, and never paid the purchase price.'

As to the first group of claimants, the defense of the indemnity company was, and is, that whereas the principal named in the general livestock bond sued on was Vernon F. Kuhlmann, d/b/a Deshler Sales Company of Deshler, Nebraska, the transactions out of which the claims arose were in each instance purchases of livestock and failure to pay therefor by Vernon Kuhlmann personally and not by Vernon F. Kuhlmann, d/b/a Deshler Sales Company of Deshler, Nebraska, so that the bond did not cover the transactions. The same defense was asserted as to the claims of each of the three farmers, and. the further contention was made as to them that their cattle were not “purchased at a public stockyards as defined by the Act”, within the condition of the bond, but were purchased at the farmers’ respective farms. As to the purchase of the ninety-one head of cattle from Mr. .Boyer, it was and is contended that the purchase was by Vern Kuhlmann personally and was made at Mr. Boyer’s farm — not at public stockyards.

The case was tried to the court without a jury and the court found as a fact (168 F.Supp. 86, 107) “Upon the whole record, * * * that in making each of the several purchases [of cattle], and in the making, execution, issuance and delivery of the several [protested and unpaiii] cheeks [for the cattle purchased] * * * Vernon F. Kuhlmann acted as ‘Vernon F. Kuhlmann, doing business as Deshler Sales Company’, that is to say, in the capacity in which he and defendant, Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company executed, filed and gave the bond in suit.”

The court also found as to the purchases of cattle from the three farmers that each sale was made at a “posted stockyard” for which “Vernon F. Kuhl-mann, doing business as Deshler Sales Company was registered as a dealer under the Packers and Stockyards Act, 1921,” and that “those sales also were made to Vernon F.

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Bluebook (online)
262 F.2d 202, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hartford-accident-indemnity-co-v-baldwin-ca8-1958.