Hewitt v. Great Western Beet Sugar Co.

118 P. 296, 20 Idaho 235, 1911 Ida. LEXIS 96
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 26, 1911
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 118 P. 296 (Hewitt v. Great Western Beet Sugar Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hewitt v. Great Western Beet Sugar Co., 118 P. 296, 20 Idaho 235, 1911 Ida. LEXIS 96 (Idaho 1911).

Opinion

STEWART, C. J.

On the 30th day of January, 1907, the Great Western Beet Sugar Company, a corporation organized and incorporated under the laws of the state of Washington, executed to the appellant a mortgage to secure the payment of the. sum of $80,000, represented by various promissory notes. The mortgage covered reservoirs, ditches, canals, water rights and a large volume of property • constituting an irrigation system owned by the Great Western Beet Sugar Company, and situated in Elmore county, state of Idaho.

This action was brought for the purpose of foreclosing said mortgage. The Great Western Beet Sugar Company, the mortgagor, and a large number of other parties, consisting of persons and corporations claiming judgments and liens, mechanics’ liens, laborers’ liens, and persons who had purchased and contracted for water rights from the Great Western Beet Sugar Company, were made defendants. The Great Western Beet Sugar Company made no answer to the complaint. A large number of the other defendants filed answer to the complaint and a cross-complaint asking for the foreclosure of their said liens, and alleging that such liens were superior and a prior lien to that of the plaintiff’s mortgage.

The case was tried and the trial court made certain findings of fact, among which were that the plaintiff was entitled to recover and have his mortgage foreclosed against the property described; finding No. 9 that the Great Western Beet Sugar Company sold and conveyed certain water rights to defendants answering in the case for the respective number of acres and giving the date of such conveyances; findings were also made in favor of the defendants, lienholders, second mort[240]*240gagees, and judgment creditors, upon their cross-complaints, and that such liens were liens upon the property, and that they should be foreclosed; that “as collateral security and in addition to the security of the mortgage sought to be foreclosed, the defendant, the Great Western Beet Sugar Company, turned over to the plaintiff, Henry Hewitt, Jr., certain promissory notes of the respective dates and for the respective amounts, and given by the respective persons set forth in exhibit ‘10’ of the said plaintiff, -Henry Hewitt, Jr., introduced in evidence on the trial of the cause”; and finding No. 149, “That on the 18th day of March, 1909, this court made an order appointing Norman Isachson receiver in that certain action pending in the district court of the fourth judicial district of the state of Idaho in and for Elmore county, wherein the Idaho Fruit Lands Co., Limited, was plaintiff, and the Great Western Beet Sugar Company and the Elmore County Irrigation Farms Association were defendants, for the care, preservation, protection and repair of the same property which is in issue in the ease at bar, known as the canal system of the Great Western Beet Sugar Company; and in the same order, and also in the supplemental order dated April 15th, 1909, in the same cause, directed and authorized said receiver to issue receiver’s certificates to pay the necessary expenses for the maintenance, repair and protection of said property; and on the 28th day of October, 1909, said receiver filed his final account, showing that he had issued certificates in the sum of $17,675, and said account was, without objection, after due notice to all parties, approved, settled and allowed by this court, and said receiver thereupon discharged. This court, in said orders authorizing the issuance of said certificates, made the same a first and prior lien on all the property in his charge, and being the same property in issue here and superior to all mortgages, judgments, liens and other encumbrances existing against the same.”

As conclusions of law the court found: Conclusion of Law No. 3: “That upon compliance with the terms under which the water rights set forth in Finding No. 9 hereof were sold and conveyed to the purchasers thereof, according to their re[241]*241spective contracts of purchase, such water rights shall be held by such purchasers free from and unaffected by these proceedings and the decree rendered herein”; and Conclusion of Law No. 35: “That all of the receiver’s certificates issued by said Norman Isachson, receiver, in said action of the Idaho Fruit Lands Company, Limited, against the Great Western Beet Sugar Company et al., are first liens and have priority over all other liens herein decreed, and shall be first paid before any of the same out of the proceeds of sale of the property herein involved.”

Upon the foregoing, and other findings not important to consider, the court rendered a decree foreclosing the plaintiff’s mortgage and the various liens plead by the answers of the defendants and cross-complainants appearing in said case, and adjudged that the receiver’s receipts described in Finding No. 149 be first paid, and that thereafter lienholders and creditors should be paid, after which the mortgage of the plaintiff should be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of the mortgaged property. A motion for a new trial was made and overruled and this appeal is from the judgment and from the order overruling the motion for a new trial.

Counsel for appellant first contends that all water rights, water deeds and contracts made by the Great Western Beet Sugar Company subsequent to the 30th day of January, 1907, the date appellant’s mortgage was given, whether the purchase price therefor was paid or was not paid, were subject to the lien of the appellant’s mortgage, and that the court erred in admitting such deeds and contracts in evidence, and erred in his Conclusion of Law No. 3, “that such water rights shoul.d be held by such purchasers free from and unaffected by the foreclosure proceedings.”

There is printed in the transcript a bill of exceptions which recites in substance that counsel for the defendants, over the objection of counsel for the appellant, were permitted by the court to introduce the following evidence for the purpose of proving that the defendants were entitled to water from the irrigation system of the defendant, the Great Western Beet Sugar Company, and that the water rights acquired as here[242]*242inafter set forth were unaffected by the plaintiff’s mortgage and by the mortgages and liens of the several defendants, and would not be affected by the decree foreclosing such mortgages and liens, to the introduction of which said evidence, and to each- offer to introduce such evidence, counsel for plaintiff duly objected on the ground that the same was incompetent, irrelevant and. immaterial, which objections were overruled by the court, to which counsel for plaintiff objected. Then follows a description of such deeds and contracts, some of which describe the land by legal subdivisions, and in many of which no descriptions whatever of the land are given. As a sample we give the following:

“1. Deed, to Ansel R. Braden, dated October 18th, 1907, recorded October 25th, 1907, for water rights for the NW. % of the NE. % and the NE. 14 of the NW. 14 of Section 26, Township 4 South, Range 6 East, B. M., transferred by said grantee under quit claim deed, dated October 20th, 1909, to the defendant, Charles B. Smith.
“3. Deed to Charles B. Smith, dated June 15th, 1908, for water right for 160 acres of land, land not described in deed, but it is therein stated that the water shall be applicable to any land under the present or proposed system of said Company. ’ Deed not recorded and water not applied to any specific tract of land.
“19. Deed to Charles L.

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Bluebook (online)
118 P. 296, 20 Idaho 235, 1911 Ida. LEXIS 96, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hewitt-v-great-western-beet-sugar-co-idaho-1911.