82 Minn. 21 | Minn. | 1900
After the commencement of this action and the service of the garnishee summons, claimant, Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company, appeared and made claim to the indebtedness due from the garnishee to defendant, and served and filed a complaint setting forth the grounds of its claim. Issue was joined between plaintiff and claimant, the cause was tried, and resulted in judgment for claimant, and plaintiff appeals from an order denying a new trial.
The cause was tried before the court without a jury. The findings of the trial court are not found in the record, but, as the correctness of such findings is not challenged in any respect by appellant, their absence is not important. The decision having been in favor of claimant, we take it that the allegations of its complaint are found to be true. At any rate, there seems to be no question or controversy as to the facts. All the assignments of error are directed to rulings made on the trial, and present questions relative to the legal rights of the parties only.
The question as to the validity or invalidity of the mortgage need not be considered or determined. The judgment appealed from must be affirmed on grounds with respect to which the mortgage is not a controlling factor, and its validity or invalidity will not affect that result. The question is an important one, surrounded with serious doubts, and, as it is not necessary to determine it, we prefer to pass it for future consideration. Aside from the question as to the sufficiency of the description of the property mortgaged,— future earnings from persons not named nor in any way designated or described, — the case of Hogan v. Atlantic Ele. Co., 66 Minn. 344, 69 N. W. 1, and similar cases in the earlier reports, on principle, would seem to sustain the mortgage; while the case of Steinbach v. Brant, 79 Minn. 383, 82 N. W. 651, points in the other direction.
But, aside from this question, it is clear that claimant is entitled
•The evidence offered by plaintiff tending to show a conditional acceptance of the order by the debtor was properly excluded. Such acceptance was not essential to a transfer of the debt to claimant, and, even if essential, it was in writing, and not subject to contradiction by parol contemporaneous agreements or conditions. Youngberg v. Nelson, 51 Minn. 172, 53 N. W. 629. For the same reason the evidence offered to show the conditions on which the order was given by defendant was also properly excluded. No fraud sufficient to invalidate the order was pleaded, nor did the proffered evidence show such fraud. If his contention with respect to the agreement under which the order was given be true, plaintiff has a cause of action against the company; at least the evidence offered tends in the direction of showing that, in part consideration of the order, the agent of claimant who procured it agreed to pay certain laborers to whom defendant was indebted, plaintiff being
The suggestion that the order is invalid because of the invalidity of the chattel mortgage in performance of the terms of which it was given is not sound. Even if the mortgage was invalid and unenforceable, we know of no rule of law that would render null and void a voluntary performance thereof.
Order affirmed.