More v. Burger

107 N.W. 200, 15 N.D. 345, 1906 N.D. LEXIS 36
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 14, 1906
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 107 N.W. 200 (More v. Burger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
More v. Burger, 107 N.W. 200, 15 N.D. 345, 1906 N.D. LEXIS 36 (N.D. 1906).

Opinion

Morgan. C. J.

The original' complaint stated facts that would constitute a cause of action in clgim and delivery, and the relief asked for was the delivery to the plaintiffs of the property described in the complaint, or for its value, with damages for its detention in case a delivery of the possession of the property could not be had. Nearly sixty days before the trial came on, and after the defendants had answered the complaint, plaintiffs gave notice of an application for leave to amend the complaint, and the amendment was allowed after a hearing on the motion. The facts alleged in the amended complaint are substantially the same as those of the original complaint. In each the plaintiffs claimed a lien upon the property by virtue of a chattel mortgage on the growing crop, which the defendants are alleged to have taken into their possession and converted after the same had been harvested and threshed. The prayer of the amended complaint, however, does not ask for the delivery of the possession of the grain to the plaintiffs, but simply asks for damages equal to the value of the property. There was a trial of the issues to the court without a jury, a jury having been expressly waived by a written stipulation filed with the clerk. On the trial there were numerous objections to the admission of testimony, but no rulings on such objections except in one instance, and that objection was overruled and the testimony received. No evidence was excluded at the trial. The parties evidently understood that they were trying the case under section 5630, Rev. Codes 1899, although it was tried after chapter 201, page 277, Laws of 1903, amending said section 5630 went into effect. This amendment excepts from the operation of said section all actions properly triable with a jury. The trial court made findings of fact and conclusions of law in plaintiffs’ favor and judgment was entered thereon. The defendants appeal from the judgment and ask for a review of the entire case under section 5630, Revised Codes 1899.

[348]*348A statement of the case was settled in which are found specifications of errors which relate mostly to alleged error by the trial court in not making findings as to specified facts in defendants’ favor. The statement of the case contains no specifications of the particulars in which the evidence fails to sustain the findings generally, hence the statement is not prepared in accordance with the statute, and must be disregarded when the failure of the evidence to sustain the findings is not particularly pointed out. Section 5467, Rev. Codes 1899. Nor can the evidence be reviewed in its entirety to determine whether the findings are sustained or not, as the case was not properly tried under section 5630, Revised Codes 1899.

It is claimed that there was a mistrial and that the cause should be remanded for a new trial in order that justice may be done between the parties. The amendment of section 5630 by the 1903 law does authorize a new trial to be granted if the court deem such course necessary “to the accomplishment of justice.” But the admission of incompetent or irrelevant testimony has never been construed to authorize a new trial under said section. The evidence was all received without objection or exception. Receiving such evidence was an error of law occurring at the trial, and has never been treated as authorizing this court to pronounce the trial a mistrial. Where mistrials have been found to require the remanding of the case for a new trial under section 5630, Revised Codes 1899, the cases were properly triable under that section and for some reason there had been a mistrial. In this case the appeal must be determined on errors properly specified and assigned. The errors claimed in trying the' case under section 5630 and in receiving improper evidence, are nowhere specified or assigned, hence they cannot be considered as grounds for declaring that there was a mistrial, or that the court committed error in receiving such evidence.

It is claimed that the amendment of the complaint was unauthorized. The alleged error is specified properly in the statement of the case, and the order allowing it is therefore reviewable as appearing on the face of the judgment roll, and it is assigned as error in the brief. The claim is made that the cause of action was entirely changed by the amendment and a new one substituted. The original complaint stated facts which would authorize a judgment for the return of the property to the plaintiffs based on the [349]*349fact that they held a chattel mortgage lien thereon under which they were entitled to the possession of the property, and that the defendants unlawfully took possession thereof, and converted the same to their own use. The amended complaint stated the same facts pertaining to the mortgage lien and their right to the possession of the property; and also that the defendants unlawfully took possession of the property and converted the same to their own use. In strictness the original complaint stated a cause of action to recover possession of personal property, and the amended complaint one in conversion. Substantially the same facts are stated as constituting these technically different causes of action. Under our Code system in an action to obtain possession of property unjustly detained, there is also granted the right to recover damages for the failure to return the property, if a return thereof be adjudged. Section 5447, Rev. Codes 1899. Trover or conversion is an action for damages for property unjustly detained or appropriated by a person. If the plaintiffs were entitled to the possession of the property when the action was commenced, and possession thereof could not be had, they would have been entitled to damages to the extent of its value, up to the amount of their lien, and the same would have been awarded them in their replevin action. This is all that the amended complaint demanded. Under the Code a remedy is provided for the delivery of the property involved in actions for the recovery of personal property and for damages if delivery cannot be had. When there can be no delivery of the property pursuant to the judgment or by means of the ancillary remedy of claim and deliver}', the action is in effect and in its results the same as one for conversion. Whereas, the causes of action are not strictly the same, the same results may be obtained in one as in the other. The causes of action in these two complaints were not so entirely different as to bring them within the principle that an amendment will not be permitted when an entirely different cause of action is pleaded by the amendment.

The only allegation that is dropped out of the original complaint is the one that the property is unjustly and unlawfully detained by the defendants. Both complaints state that the property was converted by the defendants. The change in the complaint, therefore, relates almost exclusively to the relief asked and there is not a substantial change in the facts on which the cause of action is [350]*350based. There are cases holding such amendments as the one under consideration not permissible, but they are based upon and follow the common-law idea of a replevin action, one to obtain possession of personal property simply. We have recently decided that amendments are permissible in furtherance of justice when the causes of action, though technically different, are based on the same facts substantially. We think this case comes within the spirit of these cases. Rae v. Railway Co., 105 N. W. 721, and Kerr v. City of Grand Forks, 107 N. W. 197.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
107 N.W. 200, 15 N.D. 345, 1906 N.D. LEXIS 36, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/more-v-burger-nd-1906.