Thayer v. Gile

49 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 268, 5 N.Y. St. Rep. 103

• Court: New York Supreme Court
• Decided: November 15, 1886
• Status: Published

Opinion

Landon, J.

This complaint is very crudely drawn. It is redundant in statement of immaterial matters, and it lacks definiteness and certainty with respect to material matters. Nevertheless, it states in substance : that on the 17th of March, 1886, the plaintiff, as tenant in common with the defendant, was in possession of a quantity of hay (what was remaining of forty tons), which the defendant then wholly converted to his own use, to plaintiff’s damage, etc.

How large a quantity, what share the plaintiff owned, and its value, are left uncertain. Still, since the defendant converted it all, he converted the plaintiff’s share, and thus injured her to the extent of its value. There is an immaterial allegation of a demand of one half, but that is not an allegation that the plaintiff owned one half; also of a division, but the plaintiff could take her own share without demand of the defendant.

The material allegation is, the defendant’s conversion. It is still good pleading to state facts according to their legal effect, unless the pleader so narrates the facts as to show that he has mistaken their legal effect, which is not quite the case here. Thus, it was not necessary for the plaintiff to allege the details from which her tenancy in common, or possession, or the conversion by the defendant would follow as their legal effect. These details are rather in the^nature of the evidence, to be adduced upon the trial to support these three allegations.

A complaint must contain a plain and concise statement of the facts. No statement can be plainer or more concise than the statement that the defendant converted the plaintiff’s hay. If the plaintiff gave a narrative of all the acts performed by the defendant in order to accomplish this conversion, it might be far from plain whether any conversion was in fact accomplished. The details of the transaction may very much obscure the fact of conversion.

Since the share of the plaintiff is not stated, it may be, that in order to establish conversion, the plaintiff will have to prove the loss, sale or destruction of the entire hay. (Lobdell v. Stowell, 51 ; Osborn v. Schenck, 83 id., 201; Dear v. Reed, 37 Hun, 594.) By using the word “ converted ” the plaintiff has concisely condensed in a single word the notice to the defendant that whatever it may be necessai’y to prove she intends to prove it.

It is objected that the allegation of conversion is a conclusion of law and not of fact. Ordinarily, the narration of a transaction, whether by stating all the details of it or by stating these details according to their legal effect, is the narration of a fact. A statement of a conclusion of law is usually a statement of the right or liability flowing from certain facts.

Thus, A lent B a dollar is the fact, B owes A a dollar is the law. A converted B’s hay is a fact; B’s liability to A, the law. But from a given state of facts the law will pronounce that A converted B’s hay. Is the statement of the conversion, therefore, the statement of a conclusion of law ? It is rather the statement of a fact, ascertained by the rules of law. From the facts given, the law presumes the fact required, but the presumption is only a rule of evidence, and, by the application of that rule, the fact required is determined. The rule of evidence, by which the fact sought is found, is not the fact itself. The rule is the instrument or help through which the fact sought is discovered. If the rule is called a conclusion of law, then, by means of the conclusion of law, the conclusion of fact is established.

Judgment reversed, with costs of appeal and of court below. The defendant may have usual leave to answer.

Learned, P. J., and Bocees, J., concurred.

So ordered.