20 N.Y.S. 183 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1892
This action was for trespass in removing and converting personal property, consisting of lumber, telegraph poles, railroad ties, and fence posts. Ho other cause of action was set forth in the complaint. The main controversy between the parties was whether the plaintiffs had sufficient interest in the property in question to enable them to maintain the action. By virtue of their contract with Morss, the plaintiffs became the equitable owners of the land described therein, together with all the timber and trees growing thereon, except so far as the same was therein reserved and excepted. Moore v. Burrows, 34 Barb. 173; Adams v. Green, Id. 176; Hathaway v. Payne, 34 N. Y. 103. The exception contained in the contract reserved to Morss, his agents, or Chace, only such timber as was cut and removed within four years. If any was not removed within that time, although cut, it did not fall within the exception, and the equitable title, with the absolute right of possession, passed to the plaintiffs. McIntyre v. Barnard, 1 Sandf. Ch. 52; Boisaubin v. Reed, *41 N. Y. 323; Kellam v. McKinstry, 69 N. Y. 264; Lacustrine Fertilizer Co. v. Lake Guano & F. Co., 82 N. Y. 476.
If it be admitted that Morss had title to the lumber and timber which had been cut and removed to the mill yard and piling ground, it by no means follows that he had the right to remove the portion left upon other parts of the premises of which the plaintiffs had actual possession, and to all of which they had an equitable title. When Morss, or those claiming or acting under him, failed to remove the timber cut within the time provided, as we have seen, it passed under the contract to the plaintiffs, who thereupon acquired an equitable title to it, with a legal right to its possession, which was expressly given by the contract. Before the trial of this action the plaintiffs’ equitable title had ripened into a legal title. When the action was commenced, the plaintiffs, by virtue of their equitable interest and legal right to the possession of it, had, we think, such a special property in, and right of possession of, the lumber not removed, as would enable them to maintain an action for its conversion against any person wrongfully taking the same, and even against a person holding the naked legal title in trust as security for the payment of the unpaid purchase price of the premises, especially where, as in this ease, the whole purchase price had been tendered. 4 Amer. & Eng. Enc. Law, 117; Moak’s Underh. Torts, 589; Edwards v. Frank, 40 Mich. 616; Hoyt v. Van Alstyne, 15 Barb. 568; Stowell v. Otis, 71 N. Y. 38; Wheeler v. Lawson, 103 N. Y. 40, 45, 8 N. E. Rep. 360. We therefore conclude that the court erred in holding that the plaintiffs had not sufficient title to maintain this action.
But it is contended that the plaintiffs were estopped from insisting upon their right to the timber not removed within the time mentioned in the contract, because the plaintiffs forbade the defendant from removing it on January 12, 1886, when the defendant had all of the 13th day of that month in