Power Manufacturing Co. v. Arkansas Rice Growers' Cooperative Ass'n

281 S.W. 379, 170 Ark. 771, 1926 Ark. LEXIS 239
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedMarch 22, 1926
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 281 S.W. 379 (Power Manufacturing Co. v. Arkansas Rice Growers' Cooperative Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Power Manufacturing Co. v. Arkansas Rice Growers' Cooperative Ass'n, 281 S.W. 379, 170 Ark. 771, 1926 Ark. LEXIS 239 (Ark. 1926).

Opinion

McCulloch, C. J.

This appeal involves a controversy concerning priority of liens on a crop of rice grown on a certain plantation in Arkansas County during the year 1922. Appellant is a foreign corporation, and Arkansas Rice Growers ’ Cooperative Association, one of the appellees, is a domestic corporation, organized as a cooperative marketing association. Flo3d E. James leased the lands in question from the owner for the purpose of growing a crop of rice thereon -during the year 1922, and he entered into a contract with R. A. Scott, one of the appellees, whereby -Scott should furnish his services in growing the crop and should receive the first 2,000 bushels of rice threshed. On March 21, 1922, James and Scott joined in executing a chattel mortgage to appellee H. B. Dudley to secure payment of the sum of $385. The mortgage to Dudley described the property as “the first 500 bushels of rice threshed now planted or to be planted by myself, tenants or hired labor, for the year 1922, on place known as Perry farm, situated in Arkansas County, Arkansas, containing..................acres of cotton, and..................acres of corn ..................acres of rice.”

On April 20, 1922, James executed and delivered.to appellant a mortgage on an undivided half interest in the rice to be grown by James on the leased land. Hugh Meloy -and certain other employees of James were made parties to the present suit as claimants of laborers’ liens for work and labor performed in cultivating and gathering the crop of rice.

Appellee Scott was a member of the Arkansas Rice Growers’ Cooperative Association, and, after gathering the crop of rice, delivered the same to the association, there being 2,029 bushels, which were afterwards sold, and net proceeds of $1,776.80 were realized on the sale. One-half of this amount was paid over tó the landlord under the lease contract, and the remainder, $8*93.40, is the amount involved in the present controversy.

This suit was instituted by appellant against Arkansas Rice Growers’ Cooperative Association and Dudley, James and Scott, and also a banking institution at the town of DeWitt, appellant claiming a superior lien under its mortgage on all the proceeds of the sale of rice except the one-half paid over to the landlord. The Arkansas Rice Growers’ Cooperative Association filed its answer admitting the receipt of the funds arising from the proceeds of the sale of the rice, but setting forth the prior claims of other parties to the funds, and asking that the court direct the distribution of the proceeds among the various claimants in accordance with their priority rights.

■On May 2, 1923, appellee Dudley answered, setting up his prior elaim under the mortgage referred to herein, and on April 17,1923, the Bank of DeWitt filed an answer claiming under a mortgage éxecuted by Scott on April 25, 1923. Scott answered, claiming the proceeds under a contract with, James.

On June 19,1924, Arkansas Rice Growers’ Cooperative Association filed an amended answer setting forth, as in its original answer, the receipt of the- funds and the claims of prior liens of the other parties mentioned, and also set forth in the answer that on January 11,1923, Meloy and the other claimants of labor liens instituted an action in the chancery court of Arkansas County against the association, and also against appellant, asserting their liens, and that there was a decree , rendered declaring a superior lien in favor of the laborers. The prayer of the amended answer was that' the claimants of laborers’ liens should be made parties to litigate their rights in the present action.

On November 28, 1924, appellant filed a reply to the' amended answer of the association, and denied that the claims of the other parties mentioned were superior to the claims of appellant under its mortgage.

On November 15, 1924, Meloy and the other laborers filed their intervention setting forth their superior liens on the erop as laborers, and exhibited with their plea the former decree referred to in the answer of Arkansas Rice Growers’ Cooperative Association. Appellant filed its answer to the intervention on December 8, 1924, denying that the liens of the interveners were superior.

The chancery court met in adjourned session on December 8, and appellant filed an affidavit asking for a postponement for thirty days to afford an opportunity to take the depositions o,f officers and agents of appellant corporation to show that none of them had been notified or served with process in the original action instituted-■by the*laborers against Arkansas Rice Growers’ Cooperative Association to establish the lien of the laborers. The request for postponement was Overruled, and on the hearing of the cause the court rendered a decree dismissing the complaint of appellant and distributing the funds to the other claimants, who were held to have superior liens.

. The first contention is that the cause was prematurely tried in the court below over appellant’s objection, and this contention is based upon the terms of the statute fixing the time when equitable proceedings shall stand for trial. The statute reads as follows:

“ Section 1288. Actions prosecuted by equitable proceedings shall stand for trial on any -day -that the court meets in regular or adjourned session where the pleadings are, or by the provisions of §§ 1208 and 1209 should have been completed for ninety days, but where they have not been so completed, though by the provisions of this act they should have been, the party in default, as to time, shall not -be entitled to demand a trial.” Crawford & Moses’ Digest.

The point sought to be made is that the time for completion of the pleadings in the case was thirty days after the interplea of Meloy and others, and that the case did not stand for trial until ninety days thereafter. This contention is unsound, for the reason that the filing of the intervention claiming an interest in the property involved did not postpone the trial of the action, for there is no statute fixing the time for answer to such intervention, and it was a matter within the discretion of the court. -Section 1208, Crawford & Moses’ Digest, specifies the time when a defense to a complaint or cross-complaint must be filed, but the intervention of the laborers was not a cross-complaint within the meaning of the statute. Section 1204, Crawford & Moses ’ Digest, provides that the filing and prosecution of a cross-complaint ‘ ‘ shall not delay the trial and decision of the original action when a judgment can be rendered therein that will not prejudice the rights of the parties to the cross-complaint.” The issues in the case had been made up completely more than ninety days prior to the date of the trial, and the filing of the intervention did not call for a postponement of the trial. The holder of the funds, Arkansas Rice Growers’ Cooperative Association, pleaded in its answer that the funds belonged to third parties, and the result of the trial would have been the same if the laborers had not. intervened at all. Appellant, even after the intervention, would have had no right to recover from the holder of the funds the distributive part to which the laborers were entitled, and whose liens had been established in apt time by their former suit in chancery against the holder of the funds. Nor was there any abuse of discretion in refusing a postponement of the.

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Bluebook (online)
281 S.W. 379, 170 Ark. 771, 1926 Ark. LEXIS 239, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/power-manufacturing-co-v-arkansas-rice-growers-cooperative-assn-ark-1926.