78 Ky. 481 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1880
delivered the opinion of the court.
This was an action instituted in the Pulaski circuit court for the specific rec<^j¡gry of 2,600 railroad cross-ties. Strubbee, the appellant,'owned the land ispm which the timber was cut and out of which the cross-ties were made. The ties were hauled and stacked on the line of the Cincinnati Railway, and sold by E. T. Wells & Co. to the trustees of that road.
It is an admitted fact that the timber was cut and delivered to Wells & Co. by parties who were trespassers on appellant's land, having entered and taken his timber without any license from the owner, and in the absence of any claim whatever. It also appears that Wells & Co., who are the vendors of the ties to. the Southern Railway, were purchasers in good faith from the original trespassers, without notice of the trespass, or the existence of any claim on the part of the appellant. The testimony shows that the timber taken was worth in the tree from five to fifteen cents per •stick, and when converted into cross-ties, each tie was worth 341^ cents.
The court below refused to instruct the jury that the plaintiff (appellant) was entitled to recover the cross-ties or their value, but instructed the jury to find for the appellant the value of his timber in the tree when taken by the trespassers. Of this instruction the appellant^ complains, and
That the original owner has title to his timber, but the 'innocent purchaser has the title or right to the results of the wrong-doer’s labor upon it.
This doctrine is announced in the case of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Company v. Hutchins, reported in the 32d Ohio State Reports, and seems to have •controlled the decision of this case in the court below. That case has gone further in denying the right of recovery
The facts appearing in the case cited conduced to show that a large quantity of wood and railroad ties was cut upon i the land of the plaintiff by trespassers and hauled to the rail- | road, where it was sold to the company without any notice of the rights of the owners, and the purchase mftsle in the. best of faith. The wood in the tree was worth one dollar per cord, and when delivered on the road was sold for three ¡, dollars per cord. The company was sued for the value of I, the wood and ties in its possession, and the court held that | the measure of damages was the value of the timber as it stood on the plaintiff’s land. It is conceded that the trespasser could gain nothing by his own wrong, and that the results of his labor passed to the owner of the property, but the innocent purchaser is protected on the idea that he has. done no wrong. If the wanton trespasser acquires no title, \ I he can pass none to a purchaser from him, and there is no ! rule of law that will preclude the owner from recovering the. property itself or its value. Every purchaser of property must know, at his peril, of whom he is purchasing; and if his vendee has acquired the property as a trespasser, a purchase from him, although in good faith, cannot be relied on as a defense to the claim of the real owner. No demand is even required to be made of the innocent purchaser in such a case, because, having obtained the property from a wrongdoer, his possession is tortious. This action is for the identical property sold the appellee (the railroad company) by the trespasser, without any change having been made in its condition, except such as had been caused by the labor of the wrong-doer; and the rule is well established, with scarcely an \ exception, that where the identity of the original article can |
This rule is qualified by Justice Cooley, in his work on the Law of Torts, by adding, “unless'the value of that which has been expended upon it is sufficiently great, as compared with the original value, to render' the injustice of permitting its appropriation by the original owner so gross and palpable as to be apparent at first blush.” (Cooley on Torts, page 56.) The objection to this qualification consists in the difficulty of applying a rule where the difference in the value of the property from its unimproved to its improved condition is to determine the right of recovery,
When the identity of the original article is lost, we can well see how the title is gone from the original owner, as, where grapes have been converted into wine, or timber into •a house, or corn into whisky, or where railroad ties have become a part of the road. In all such cases it will be adjudged, as a matter of law, that the identity of the article is destroyed, and the rights of the innocent purchaser will be protected. These has been such a mechanical transformation of the article as to destroy its identity, and the mere fact that the timber can be traced into a building, or the corn to the distillery in which the whisky was made or out of which it was made, is not such an identification of the property as would authorize its recovery.
It is true that the question of intention has much to do in determining the quantum of damages in action for torts.
The willful trespasser should be subjected to a severer punishment than one who commits a trespass under the belief that he is the owner of the property, or has the right to take it into possession. That question, however, is not involved ■in this case. The action is to recover the property itself. It
The case of Wetherbee against Green and others, reported in 22 Michigan, was an action of replevin by Green, &c.-, to-recover a quantity of hoops made out of timber from Green’s, land. The defendant relied on a license to enter and cut the timber from one Sumner, who at one time owned the land jointly with Green. It turned out that Sumner, prior to the date of the license, had sold his interest to Camp and Brooks, and the latter uniting in the action with Green, claimed the value of the hoops. That the defendant entered under a mistake of fact clearly appeared, and it also appeared that, the timber in the tree was worth only twenty-five dollars, and the hoops made out of this timber were worth seven hundred dollars. The court held that the owner could not
The doctrine of title by accession was insisted on in that case, but it was held that the identity of the timber was not destroyed, nor its value so increased as to make the value of the timber in the tree insignificant when compared with it. The fact that the property has been increased in value is not sufficient to divest the owner of title, nor will the party performing the labor, although mistaken as to his rights, be entitled to compensation to the extent of the benefit re'ceived by the owner. One has no right to enter upon the property of another and there make improvements, however mistaken he may be as to his right, and require the owner to compensate him for his blunder. He must know the extent of his own possession, and if, in ignorance of his rights, benefits another, no recovery can be had, however innocently the mistake may have been made.
If the wanton trespasser is permitted to dispose of the property in a. case like this to an innocent purchaser for three times the value of the timber in the tree, it is ample remuneration to the wrong-doer for his labor, and the real owner is deprived of his property without his knowldgc or consent. The prospective value of the timber to' the owneg is denied him. His wishes are not consulted as to- the char
In this case, if the company had been the original trespasser, under a mistake as to its right to the timber, the ' appellant (the owner) would have been entitled to recover, and when the original taking rvas a willful trespass, the bonaj fide purchaser acquired no greater right than the party under 1 whom he claims could have asserted. The case of Heard ' against James (49 Mississippi), relied on by the appellee, gave to the original owner the value of the timber in its improved condition. There the trees were severed and the timber converted into staves by a trespasser, and the latter was held responsible for their value. That case intimates that, where the value of the thing has been enhanced by the ■labor and skill employed to adapt the material to a moip useful purpose, under a mistake as to right of ownership,, the real owner will be confined to the value of the original -article; but it is nowhere adjudged, except in the casa reported in 32 Ohio, that the innocent purchaser clin acquire title to the thing itself, or its increased value, because of the labor performed by the wrong-doer under whom he claims.
This judgment must be reversed on both the original and' cross-appeal, and the cause remanded, with directions to award a new trial, and for further proceedings consistent, with this opinion.