70 So. 153 | Ala. | 1915
The complaint contains counts in trespass and in trover. The defendant interposed the plea of the general issue. The cause was tried without a jury, and there was neither a special finding of facts nor request for such special finding of facts. The judgment was for the defendant.
This is the codification of the act approved February 23, 1889 (Acts 1888-89, p. 45), the title of which was “To enable
This act was inserted in the Code of 1896, as section 1064, which section was readopted in the Code of 1907 as section 4894, in the same language. Since this statute, it has been held that a mortgage executed after the 1st of January conveys the legal title to the unplanted crop, but that a mortgage executed before that date conveys only an equitable title — Shows v. Brantley, 127 Ala. 352, 28 South. 716. This statute was first construed by Chief Justice Stone, in Hooper v. Payne, 94 Ala. 223, 10 South. 431, and the construction there rendered was followed by Chief Justice Brickell in Keyser v. Mass & Schwartz, 111 Ala. 390, 21 South. 346, and by Chief Justice McClellan and Dowdell in Woods v. Rose & Co., 135 Ala. 297, 33 South. 41, and Gaston v. Marengo Improvement Co., 139 Ala. 465, 467, 36 South. 738, respectively.
In Sellers & Orum Co. v. Hardaway, 188 Ala. 388, 66 South. 460, the effect of section 4894 of the Code, on title, where the mortgage was executed before January 1st, was not considered. The only question there decided was that a mortgage upon cotton to be grown is not' valid, where, at the time of the execution of the mortgage, the mortgagor had no valid lease of the land on which the crop was to be raised, but was merely negotiating for a lease, because the crop had no potential existence. The action was by the assignée of a mortgagee, against the purchaser of cotton from the. tenant, and the complaint is “grounded upon the destruction of the asserted lien” of the mortgage. It was not necessary in that case to decide whether the lien created by the mortgage was legal or equitable. Such were the facts for decision in Windham & Co. v. Stephenson & Alexander, 156 Ala. 341, 47 South. 280, 19 L. R. A. (N. S.) 910, 130 Am. St. Rep. 102.
In the case at bar the action is for the value of two bales of cotton, 'and is brouht by mortgagees, Pinckard & Lay, against C. G. Cassels, another mortgagee, of one W. H. Edwards. The undisputed facts were that on May 23,1914, Edwards gave Pinckard & Lay a mortgage, due October 15, 1914, on his “entire crop of corn, cotton and produce, and all rents accruing * * * for the year 1914, and each succeeding year in the county in which” the mortgagor then resided, “until paid,” and that this mortgage was on the day of its date filed for record in the probate office of Etowah county and duly recorded.
The defendant offered in evidence, against the objection and exception of the plaintiffs, a mortgage, duly recorded in the probate office of Etowah county, from W. H. Edward's to C. G. Cassels, conveying certain specifically described personal property, and “also my entire crop of cotton, cotton seed, corn, fodder, hay, wheat, oats, rye, peas, sorghum, and all other produce which I may raise or cause to be raised, or which may accrue to me for rent on my own or any other land in Etowah county, Alabama, during the year 1913, and succeeding years until said secured debt is paid in full,” and a mortgage from Edwards to defendant, duly recorded in said county, of date June 6, 1914, conveying specific personal property, with a crop clause of like terms, for the year 1914, and those in the said mortgage for 1913, “and each succeeding year,” etc.
The mortgagor not having had on May 2, 1913, such an interest in the result of the rental contract for the year 1914, in the lands on which the cotton in question was grown, no right or lien was acquired by C. G. Cassels to the two bales of cotton in question, of the crop grown by Edwards for 1914.
The judgment of the city court of Gadsden is reversed, and judgment is here rendered for appellants for $74.74,'this being the value of the cotton converted, with interest thereon to date.
Reversed and rendered.