11 S.D. 227 | S.D. | 1898
This was an action in claim and delivery. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff, and the defendant appealed. The defendant did not controvert the. plaintiffs ownership of the property, but he claimed the right to the possession by virtue of an hotel keeper’s lien thereon for a balance due him for board of one Kirk, who brought the property to defendant’s hotel. The case was tried to a jury, and a verdict rendered in favor of the plaintiff on all the issues.
Several errors are assigned, but in the view we take of the case, the only question requiring consideration is, did the defendant have an hotel1 keeper’s lien upon the property of the plaintiff taken by Kirk to his room in the hotel? This question was properly raised by defendant’s motion for the direction of a verdict in his favor, which was denied, and exception taken. The 'record does not disclose the grounds upon which the motion was made or denied, and hence, if the court's ruling was correct upon any ground, it must be sustained. From the evi dence it appears that Kirk boarded at defendant’s hotel for some weeks, and while so boarding there he, leased the gun in controversy from the plaintiff, and took it to his room in the hotel, in which defendant found it after Kirk had left, and
While courts of states in which the common-law still prevails have held to the old rule, we notice that the court of appeals of Missouri, in a case quite similar to the one at bar, speaking by Mr. Justice Thompson, vigorously questions its applicability to our present system. He says: “Nor are we prepared to agree with those courts which have found a plain principle of justice in a rule of law by which one man’s property is confiscated to pay another man’s debts. It is, to say the least, doubtful whether the extraordinary liability which the common law imposed upon the innkeeper in respect of goods brought to his inn by his guest furnishes a good reason for such a rule. It is also doubtful whether such a rule is not in conflict with the spirit of those guaranties of the right of private property which are embodied in American constitutions. It would be beyond the power of the legislature to pass a law under which the property of one man should be ar
Giving to the hotel keeper a lien upon the baggage and effects belonging to his guest is, in our opinion, as far as the legislature would have a right to' go, and as far as it was its intention to go in the passage of the law in question. The court was therefore clearly right in denying the motion of the defendant, and the verdict of the jury was right in finding for the plaintiff. The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.