112 Wash. 352 | Wash. | 1920
This action was brought by the appellant against the respondent Hines, as Director General of railroads, to recover the value of three car loads of scrap iron. The amount sued for is $2,080. Subsequently to the bringing of the action, the respondent Alaska Junk Company was made a party defendant at the demand of the Director General. The case was tried to the court without a jury, and resulted in a judgment in favor of the appellant and against the respondent in the sum of $868.45, and also a judgment in favor of the respondent Hines and against the junk company in a like amount. The judgment further provided “that if any other further or additional judgment in this cause be entered in favor of the plaintiff and against said defendant Walker D. Hines, Director General of railroads, as operating the Northern Pacific Railway, then it is further ordered, adjudged and decreed that he do have, as against the Alaska Junk Company, a judgment for any additional amount which may be entered against him in favor of the plaintiff, on account of any of the matters and things involved in this action. ” It is from this judgment that the bank has appealed.
The following is the substance of the facts: The appellant is a banking institution, doing business at Salt Lake City, Utah; the respondent Walker D. Hines
During the last days of August and the first few days of September, 1918, the respondent Hines, operating the Northern Pacific Bailway, received from Bosenblatt, at Phillipsburg, Montana, four cars loaded with scrap iron, for transportation to Seattle. Bespondent Hines issued to Bosenblatt four separate bills of lading, one covering each car, each showing consignment to Bosenblatt at Seattle, notify Alaska Junk Company, and each showing the weight of the car, subject to correction. The fourth bill of lading figures in this case only indirectly. The railroad company did not have at the places of shipping these cars any facilities for weighing the cars and their weights were estimated. When the ears reached Missoula, however, on their way to Seattle, they were weighed and found to contain a less number of pounds than those designated in the bills of lading.
Thereafter, and on September 10, 1918, Bosenblatt drew a draft on the Alaska Junk Company in favor of the appellant for $2,730, and attached thereto the four order bills of lading. This draft, with bills of lading attached, was delivered to the appellant at its banking
The elaborate briefs of the various parties have attacked the questions involved here from various angles. It is contended by the appellant that it was the purchaser and became the absolute owner of the draft and the bills of lading, and. that, therefore, the respondent Hines has unlawfully appropriated its property and it is entitled to recover the full amount remaining unpaid on the draft. It further contends that the condition of Rosenblatt’s private account with the appellant bank has nothing to do with the case. The respondent junk company contends that' the appellant took the draft
“Much the greater number and weight of authorities is to the effect that, where one brings a check or draft to his bank, and such check or draft is made payable to the bank or is unrestrictedly indorsed to it, and requests that the amount thereof be put to his credit subject to his private check, and the bank complies therewith, and nothing else is said or done, it will be conclusively presumed that the bank has become the unqualified and absolute purchaser and owner of the check or draft, and consequently the absolute and unqualified owner of any proceeds to be derived therefrom. We think the theory is sound. It agrees with the idea and view generally accepted by business; it is the natural and unstrained construction of the action of the parties, and has the additional virtue of definitely fixing and at once defining the legal relationships of the parties in many check and draft transactions.”
We do not find it necessary to here decide whether the appellant became the owner of the bills of lading and the property they represented, or whether it held them and the property as collateral security for the payment of the draft which it had purchased. The result in this case must be the same whichever way we might decide that question. We will therefore assume, for the sake of argument, the position most favorable to the respondent, to wit, that the bank held the bills of lading and the property represented • thereby as collateral security only. Under this theory it cannot be contended that any person other than the appellant had any right to these bills of lading until the amount it was entitled to receive was paid, and it cannot be argued that the respondent Hines did not wrongfully and unlawfully surrender to the junk company the property represented by the bills of lading, or that the latter did not receive the junk wrongfully, at least as to appellant.
The further question, therefore, is, What is the amount of appellant’s injury because of such wrongful act's? Unquestionably it is the amount which the appellant would have been entitled to demand on the draft. We cannot agree with the trial court that such amount is the difference between the face of the draft and the
Both of the respondents contend that the most the appellant would be entitled to recover would be the value after deducting the freight, because, it is
The respondent, junk company contends that it has paid for the junk and was the owner of it, and therefore rightfully obtained possession of it. While this may be true as between it and Rosenblatt, it is not true as between it and the appellant. The latter did not know anything about the arrangements between the junk company and Rosenblatt. Rosenblatt had possession of the junk, the bills of lading were issued to him and he delivered them to the- appellant. Our conclusion, therefore, is that the appellant is entitled to recover, up to the amount of its draft, the value at Seattle of the three car loads of scrap iron without deduction for freight. Such value is $2,243.88, being an amount in excess of that found to be owing to appellant on its draft.
The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded with directions to enter judgment in favor of the appel
Holcomb, O. J., Fullerton, Mount, and Tolman, JJ., concur.