Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Sun Lumber Co.

126 F.2d 731, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4810
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedMarch 9, 1942
Docket4882
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 126 F.2d 731 (Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Sun Lumber Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Sun Lumber Co., 126 F.2d 731, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4810 (4th Cir. 1942).

Opinion

PARKER, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal in a controversy arising in the bankruptcy proceedings of the Eakin Lumber Company with respect to priorities of liens attaching to lumber stored on the yard of the lumber company at Sanderson, West Virginia, and sold by the trustee in bankruptcy for the sum of $27,915.36. The lien claimants are the Sun Lumber Company, which asserts a vendor’s lien for unpaid purchase money amounting to $21,047.37 and a lien under a deed of trust to secure a loan of $50,-000, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which asserts a lien as pledgee of the lumber, and a number of wage claimants, who assert liens under the statutes of West Virginia. The court below accorded priority to the liens claimed in the following'order: (1) The vendor’s lien of the Sun Lumber Company, (2) liens for labor performed within three months of bankruptcy, (3) liens for wages earned prior to that date, (4) the mortgage of the Sun Lumber Company to the extent of $1,002.52, and (5) the lien of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. See In re Eakin Lumber Company, D.C., 39 F.Supp. 787.

The Reconstruction Finance Corporation has appealed from this order, contesting the priority allowed the vendor’s lien of the Sun Lumber Company and also the liens and priorities allowed the wage claimants. The Sun Lumber Company has not appealed and does not contest here the disposition made of the claim of lien under its deed of trust; and the wage claimants have not appealed and do not contest the priority accorded the vendor’s lien of the Sun Lumber Company. While the Reconstruction Finance Corporation contests the allowance of any lien whatever under the Sun Lumber Company’s deed of trust, it is conceded that this point has no practical significance if the other liens are accorded the priority allowed them by the court below. In the view which we take of the case, only two major questions need be considered by us: (1) Whether the court below correctly accorded priority to the vendor’s lien asserted by the Sun Lumber Company, and (2) whether the liens of the wage claimants were correctly accorded priority next in order. We shall consider these questions separately.

The Vendor’s Lien

The lumber at Sanderson, to which the lien contest here involved relates, was cut by the bankrupt, the Eakin Lumber Company, from certain lands in Kanawha County, West Virginia, belonging to the Blue Creek Coal and Land Company. This company in the year 1924 conveyed all of the standing timber on this land above 12 inches in diameter to J. H. Brewster and G. P. Gillespie, who in turn conveyed it, in 1925, to the Moon Lumber Company. The Moon Lumber Company, in 1928, conveyed it to bankrupt, in a deed which recited the execution of purchase money notes by the bankrupt and expressly retained a “vendor’s lien” on the property sold to secure the payment of “the deferred installments of purchase money and the notes evidencing the same”. The amount remaining due on this purchase money is evidenced by notes now held by the Sun Lumber Company in the principal sum of $21,047.37.

The deeds from the Blue Creek Coal and Land Company to Brewster and Gillespie provided that the timber should be cut and removed from the land within a period of ten years from the date of the deeds, and that all timber not so cut and removed within that period should revert to the owner of the land. In 1929 the Blue Creek Coal & Land Company entered into an agreement with bankrupt, by the terms of which the period for the cutting and removal of the timber was extended for a period of five years, and on October 1, 1935, entered into another agreement by which the period for cutting and removal was extended for an additional period of three years. These agreements recited the conveyance of the timber by the Blue Creek Coal and Land Company to Brewster and Gillespie, the conveyance by them to the Moon Lumber Company and the conveyance by the latter to the bankrupt, and each was based upon a consideration of $2,500 for which the extension of time for the removal of the lumber originally sold was granted. Question is made as to the validity of the vendor’s lien reserved by the Moon Lumber Company, in view of the fact that the time for the removal of the timber granted by the land owner had expired and the contracts of exten *734 sion had been entered into with the bankrupt; but it appears that in “stand-by” agreements executed in 1935, to which both the Reconstruction Finance Company and the Sun Lumber Company were parties, the validity of the vendor’s lien reserved by the Moon Lumber Company as security for notes held by Sun Lumber Company was expressly recognized, and a deed of trust taken by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation at the time was expressly made subject thereto, although the original ten year period for the removal of the timber had already expired and any rights of the Sun Lumber Company under the vendor’s lien were dependent upon the extension agreements, both of which had already been executed and were referred to in the deed of trust.

The lumber in controversy was piled, not within the boundaries of the tract from which it was cut as set forth by metes and bounds in the deeds from the Blue Creek Coal and Land Company, but on an adjoining tract belonging to that company immediately across the creek from that tract. This was done under authority contained in one of the deeds from the company which provided: “The party of the first part further gives and grants to the parties of the second part the right to the use of sufficient bottom land on the northerly side of Blue Creek of the lands of the party of the first part at the mouth of Board Tree Hollow for a mill site for the location and operation of a saw mill and lumber yard thereon during the term of this agreement for the manufacture and removal of said timber, together with a sufficient right of way for transportation or hauling logs, timber or lumber over the lands of the party of the first part from said mill site to the Kana-wha and West Virginia Railroad at its station at Sanderson in said Kanawha County, but said mill site and rights of way are to be so located and used as to do the least practicable damage to the property of the party of the first part and so as not to interfere with its operations for coal or other minerals or products of said lands.” The rights thus conveyed by this deed were duly transferred to bankrupt in the deeds from Brewster & Gillespie to Moon Lumber Company and by Moon Lumber Company to bankrupt, both of which transferred all rights originally conveyed by the land company; and the evidence leaves no doubt that the lumber yard upon which the lumber in controversy was piled was within the bottom upon which the right to maintain a lumber yard was granted by the deeds conveying the timber rights. There is evidence that the bankrupt took a lease from the land company covering this lumber yard; but there is evidence, also, that the purpose of taking the lease was to obtain the use of certain dwelling houses on the leased premises and to remove all question as to the right of the bankrupt to use this particular property as a lumber yard.

No lumber was cut at Sanderson until after the year 1935. On November 20th of that year “stand-by” agreements were entered into by creditors of the bankrupt, including the Sun Lumber Company, to enable bankrupt to obtain a loan of exceeding $100,000 from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation so that it might continue operations.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Duncan Box & Lumber Co. v. Applied Energies, Inc.
270 S.E.2d 140 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1980)
In Re New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co.
330 F. Supp. 131 (D. Connecticut, 1971)
In Re Meisel
159 F. Supp. 879 (D. Maryland, 1958)
Wright v. Grain Dealers Nat. Mut. Fire Ins. Co
186 F.2d 956 (Fourth Circuit, 1950)
In Re Rand Mining Co.
71 F. Supp. 724 (S.D. California, 1947)
Morrill v. Waern Bldg. Corp.
145 F.2d 584 (Seventh Circuit, 1944)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
126 F.2d 731, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4810, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reconstruction-finance-corp-v-sun-lumber-co-ca4-1942.