Senter v. Mitchell

16 F. 206
CourtUnited States Circuit Court
DecidedApril 15, 1883
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 16 F. 206 (Senter v. Mitchell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Senter v. Mitchell, 16 F. 206 (uscirct 1883).

Opinion

Caldwell, J.

On the fifteenth day of November, 1881, the defendant, Austin Mitchell, was indebted to Milner & Collins in the sum of §1,767.69, evidenced by a negotiable promissory note of that date, and, to secure payment of the same executed a mortgage on that day on certain real estate and “30 bales of good lint cotton, the first picking of our crop of 1882, to average 450 pounds each, to be delivered in Prescott, Nevada county, Arkansas, on or before the first day of November, 1882.”

On the nineteenth of December, 1881, Milner &' Collins indorsed the note, and transferred the mortgage to the plaintiffs. The defendant did not deliver the cotton at the time and place appointed in the mortgage, and asked and obtained an extension of time for that purpose. He failed a second and third time to deliver the cotton as he had promised and agreed to do. Each time he gave some plausible excuse for his default, and continued thus to beguile the plaintiffs until he had gathered, baled, and sold his whole cotton crop. During this time he also sold all his other property of any value liable to seizure for debt, except the real estate embraced in the mortgage. After selling the cotton covered .by the plaintiffs’ mortgage, he admitted he had the proceeds, amounting to §800, but declined to pay the same, or any part of it, to the plaintiffs unless they would release the mortgage on the real estate. No part of the plaintiffs’ debt has been paid, the real estate mentioned in the mortgage is worth less than half the plaintiffs’ debt, and the defendant is now insolvent. The plaintiffs sued out an attachment, which the defendant traversed.

The defendant’s conduct is attempted to be justified on two grounds: (1) That the mortgage on the cotton was void for uncertainty in the description; and (2) that the note and mortgage were procured from him by fraud, and are without consideration.

Under the act of February 11, 1875, a mortgage on crops to be grown is valid, and the lien attaches when the crop is produced. If it be conceded that the description of the cotton in the mortgage is too uncertain to bind third parties, it was undoubtedly good between the mortgagor and mortgagee. McClure v. McDearmon, 26 Ark. 66; Person v. Wright, 35 Ark. 169. But the description would seem to be sufficient for all purposes. “That hath certainty enough which may be made certain.” The description is “30 bales of good lint cotton, the first picking of our crop of 1882, to average 450 pounds each.” There is no difficulty here in identifying the particular bales covered [208]*208by the mortgage; they are the first 30 picked and baled of the mortgagor’s crop of 1882. These bales were capable of identification by the fact that they were the first baled of the crop of that year; and the' lien of the mortgage fastened upon them as soon as the process of baling was completed. Robinson v. Maudlin, 11 Ala. 977; Stearns v. Gafford, 56 Ala. 544. In the last case cited the court say:

• “In the case of Robinson v. Maudlin, 11 Ala. 977, the grantor, who was a planter, was indebted to his commission merchants, and, to secure them, conveyed to a trustee by trust deed ‘ 50,000 pounds of the first picking of the crop of 1842, then growing on Ms plantation, to be neatly ginned and packed in bales, ready for market; and upon the failure of the planter to pay the note at maturity, the trustee was authorized to take said 50,000 pounds of cotton and ship the same to the commission merchants, to be sold for the payment of the note,’ etc. 'The question was whetherthe trust deed conveyed the title of the cotton, so as to place it beyond the lien of an execution. It was decided that it did : the court holding that the terms ‘ first cotton which may be gathered,’ means of the early, in contradistinction to the late, gathering; and, therefore, when 91 bales of the early gathering were ginned and baled, the lien attached, although there was then in the crude state a quantity of cotton, not separated from the seed, gathered earlier in the season than that which composed the 91 bales.’ The proof in this case tends to show that the cotton in controversy may justly be classed as ‘ of the first cotton that may be gathered,’ under the ruling in the case from which we have quoted.”

On this question the case of Person v. Wright, supra, is not in point. In that case the description was an interest in the mortgagor’s crop “to the extent of one 500-pound bale.” No clue was given by which the bale could be identified, and the court properly held that “until separation or designation of the particular property, no action of re-plevin could be maintained.”

The defendant has failed utterly to show fraud or want of consideration. The evidence establishes, beyond controversy, that the note and mortgage were given for a full and valuable consideration. Upon the proofs it is clear that the defendant disposed of his property, the cotton particularly, to hinder and delay the plaintiffs in the collection of their debt; The defendant does not feel that he was guilty of any moral fraud. He justifies his act to his own conscience upon grounds which the court finds either had no existence in fact, or constitute no legal justification. Whatever his motive may have been, it is clear he intended, by the disposition he made of his property, to hinder and delay his creditors in the collection of their debt. This finding supports the attachment.

The defendant has been summoned and examined under section 415 of Gantt’s Digest. That section reads as follows:

[209]*209Soc. 415. “ When it appears by the affidavit of the plaintiff, or by the return of an officer to an order of attachment, that no property is known to the plaintiff or the officer on which the order of attachment can be exocuted, or not enough to satisfy the plaintiff’s claim, the defendant may be required by the court to attend before it, and give information on oath respecting his property; and where it also appears by the affidavit of the plaintiff that some person other than the defendant has in his possession property of the defendant, or evidences of debt, such person may also be required by the court to attend before it, and give information on oath respecting the same.”

He admits that he has in his possession and control the proceeds of the sale of the 30 bales of cotton, amounting to $800. The plaintiffs have filed a motion for a rule on the defendant to pay this money to the marshal or into the registry of the court. This motion is resisted on the ground that the court has no power or jurisdiction to make such an order.

It is vain for the statute to provide that the defendant may be required to attend before the court, “and give information on oath respecting his property,” if after giving such information the court is powerless to act upon it, and require the defendant to do what is plainly and obviously his legal duty. The authority to compel the discovery necessarily implies the power to render the discovery effectual. It is a settled canon of construction that what is implied in a statute is as much a part of it as what is expressed.

Suppose a defendant to answer that he has 10 horses concealed within the jurisdiction of the court, and refuses to give information which will enable an officer to find them. May he not be committed until he does do so ? Unless the court has this power, the statute is nugatory.

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Related

Brown v. Hughes
77 S.E. 730 (Supreme Court of South Carolina, 1913)
In re Alphin & Lake Cotton Co.
134 F. 477 (E.D. Arkansas, 1905)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
16 F. 206, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/senter-v-mitchell-uscirct-1883.