73 Mo. App. 531 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1898
The plaintiff filed the following petition:
“In the circuit court of Newton county, Missouri.
T. W. Davis, plaintiff, ] vs. Frank Akers and Sam Cotter, and with Pierce City National Bank as voluntary—Defendants.
Replevin.
“Plaintiff above named states that by virtue of a chattel mortgage duly made, executed and recorded, from W. D. Stockstill, to plaintiff, and dated April 22nd, 1895, the plaintiff is the owner and entitled to the possession, as against the above named defendants, of the personal property described as follows: The wheat that was grown upon, and which has been cut and put into shocks, on fields within the limits of lands
“That notwithstanding such right and ownership of the plaintiff, the defendants respectively, but without writ or process against the plaintiff or his property, wrongfully seized and took exclusive possession of all of said property on the -day of June, 1895, and they have continuously since that date wrongfully withheld, and they withhold, the said property' from the plaintiff, against his demand made therefor, and to his damage in the sum of one thousand dollars.
“Plaintiff prays judgment for the possession of said property and for one thousand dollars, and for the cost of this action.”
A writ of replevin was issued, delivery bond given, and the plaintiff was put in possession of the wheat. The defendants Akers and Cotter by their answer admitted possession of the wheat, and pleaded specially that Akers was sheriff of Newton county, and that an execution had been issued and delivered to him by the clerk of the Newton circuit court in favor of the Pierce City National Bank against W. D. Stockstill, by virtue of which he had levied upon the wheat as the property of said Stockstill for the purpose of satisfying said execution, and had put defendant Cotter, his deputy, in possession of the wheat to hold under the levy, and alleged the title to the wheat to be in Stockstill at the date of the levy. The defendants also averred that the
A trial was had, resulting in a verdict and judgment for plaintiff, from which afterunsuccessful motions in arrest and for new trial, defendants appealed.
Appellant has brought his case here under the second alternative of section 2253, Revised Statutes
The so-called lease from Stockstill to the bank shows on its face and is proven by the testimony of Scott, the president of the bank who wrote the instru- . t ment and procured Stockstill to sign it, to have been not a lease, but an attempt to mortgage the future products of the land for the payment of Stockstill’s indebtedness to the bank. The bank was not to take possession of the premises under the instrument, but Stockstill was to continue in possession, receive one third of the crops for his labor, and to keep up repairs. Scott testified that the purpose of the instrument was to secure Stockstill’s indebtedness to the bank. Such an instrument is not a lease; if it had any validity at all, it was a chattel mortgage on future crops. Being such an instrument,