Whithed v. St. Anthony & Dakota Elevator Co.

83 N.W. 238, 9 N.D. 224
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 1, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 83 N.W. 238 (Whithed v. St. Anthony & Dakota Elevator Co.) 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
Whithed v. St. Anthony & Dakota Elevator Co., 83 N.W. 238, 9 N.D. 224 (N.D. 1900).

Opinions

Young, J.

This is an action in claim and delivery brought by a purchaser of real estate at foreclosure sale to recover the'possession of a quantity of wheat grown upon such land during the redemption period. The case was tried to the court without a jury, and findings of fact were made by the trial judge upon all material points. From the facts found the trial court concluded, as matter of law, that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover, and a judgment was entered dismissing the action. Plaintiff appeals from the judgment.

The appellant does not attack any of the findings of fact, but accepts them as correct. His only assignment of error is aimed at the trial court’s conclusion that such facts do not warrant a recovery [226]*226by plaintiff. To make clear this point, upon which we must rule, a recital of a few facts is necessary: One Ditton was the owner of the land in question. On April xi, 1898, he entered into a written contract with one Filson, wherein the latter agreed to farm and cultivate said land at his own expense for the farming season of 1898. This contract was quite similar in its provisions to those commonly used when lands are operated upon shares. Ditton, the owner of the land, was to have one half of all grain raised, to be taken from the machine, as his share. Filson, who produced the grain, was to have the other half of it as his share, but not until all of his various covenants and agreements in the contract had been kept and performed. Until that time the title and possession of all the grain grown were to be in Ditton. The land was farmed by Filson under this contract during the year 1898. A division of the grain was made, and Filson received his share. The share belonging to the other party to the contract was set apart, and is the wheat here involved. On April 19, 1898, Ditton executed and delivered to Thomas S. Edison, one of the defendants herein, a quitclaim deed to said land, which deed was in effect a mortgage to secure an indebtedness due the latter. On April 23, 1898, the land was sold by the sheriff of Nelson county under a foreclosure of a mortgage tliereon executed by Ditton in 1894 to H. L. Whithed, the plaintiff in this action, to whom the usual sheriff’s certificate of sale was executed and delivered. No redemption from this sale has been made. At the time of the threshing and division of the grain Edison took possession of 1,012 bushels of wheat, which was the portion set over as rent, and caused the same to be conveyed to the defendant’s elevator, where it was placed in a special bin, in his (Edison’s) name. This is the grain in controversy, and was of the value of 40 cents per bushel at the commencement of this action. Possession of said grain was demanded by plaintiff prior to the commencement of this action, and refused.

It is appellant’s contention that by virtue of his purchase of the land at the foreclosure sale on April 23, 1898, he came into all of the rights which either Ditton or Edison had in the contract under which the land was farmed during the redemption period, and is entitled to assert the same title and right of possession to the grain in question which they or either of them might have asserted thereunder had there been no foreclosure sale, and by the same remedies. This contention is based upon section 5349, Rev. Codes, which, in part, reads, as follows: “The purchaser from the time of the sale until a redemption, and a redemptioner from the time of his redemption until another redemption is entitled to receive from the tenant in possession the rents of the property sold, or the value of the use and occupation thereof.” This same statute has been in force in California for many years, during which it has been repeatedly passed upon by the Supreme Court of that state. In Reynolds v. Lathrop, 7 Cal. 43, it was held that the effect of the sale was equivalent to an assignment of the lease, and that the plaintiff in [227]*227that case, who was the purchaser, “could sue for the rent, as often as it fell due, under the terms of the lease existing when he became purchaser.” This case was followed in McDevitt v. Sullivan, 8 Cal. 593, which went further, and held that when the tenant had paid the rent for the redemption period to his landlord in advance, the purchaser could require him to pay it over again. In Harris v. Reynolds, 13 Cal. 515, the words “tenant in possession,” as used in the statute, were construed and held to include the owner who is in possession, as well as others who have possession under any kind of title. The court said: “The phrase ‘the tenant in possession’ is a generic term intended to designate the class of persons from whom the purchaser was to receive the rents. The language is not, when a tenant of the debtor is in possession, the tenant shall pay the purchaser, or that the debtor when in possession shall not; but the phraseology designed, evidently, to fix a general right applying to all cases of tenancy, for none are excluded. * * * The definition of ‘tenant in possession’ embraces within the natural and usual meaning of the words a judgment debtor as well as his lessee. The owner in fee in possession is no less, in legal contemplation, a tenant, than the man who occupies under him. The definition of ‘tenant’ is ‘one who holds or póssésses lands or tenements by any kind of title, either in fee, for life, years, or at will.’ ” So, too, in Hill v. Taylor, 22 Cal. 191, it was held that the purchaser of a mine at a mortgage foreclosure sale was entitled to the profits of the mine, which the mortgagor was working himself. .That court further said, in discussing relative rights of the purchaser and original owner after sale, in Page v. Rogers, 31 Cal. 294: “The purchaser acquires an equitable estate in the lands, conditional, it is true, but which may become absolute by simple lapse of time, without the performance of the only condition which can defeat the purchase. The legal title remains in the judgment debtor, with the further right in him, and his creditors having subsequent liens, to defeat the operation of a sale already made during a period of six months, after which the equitable estate acquired by the purchaser becomes absolute and indefeasible, and the mere dry, naked legal title remains in the judgment debtor, with authority in the sheriff to devest it by executing a deed to the purchaser. Even during the period which elapses between the sale and expiration of the time for redemption the statute regards the purchaser as the owner in equity, and gives him the rents and profits, or the value of the use and occupation. * * * In short, it gives him the entire beneficial interest in the property, except the actual possession.” Later, in Walker v. McCusker, 71 Cal. 594, 12 Pac. Rep. 723, it was held that “when real property is sold at a foreclosure sale a party to the foreclosure suit, who thereafter remains in possession under a claim of title, which is subject to the mortgage, is a tenant in possession, within the meaning of section 707 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and liable as such to account to the purchaser, in assumpsit, for the value of the use and occupation.” See, also, Kline v. Chase, [228]*22817 Cal. 596; Knight v. Truett, 18 Cal. 113; Walls v. Walker, 37 Cal. 424; Webster v. Cook, 38 Cal. 423.

The same question which is now presented by the appellant was before this court in Clement v. Shipley, 2 N. D. 430, 51 N. W. Rep. 414, in a form not materially different.

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Whithed v. St. Anthony & Dakota Elevator Co.
83 N.W. 238 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 1900)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
83 N.W. 238, 9 N.D. 224, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whithed-v-st-anthony-dakota-elevator-co-nd-1900.