22 Mich. 311 | Mich. | 1871
The defendants in error replevied of TVetherbee a quantity of hoops, which he had made from timber cut upon their land. TVetherbee defended the replevin suit on two grounds. First, he claimed to have cut the timber under a license from one Sumner, who was formerly tenant in common of the land with Green, and had been authorized by Green to give such license. Before the license was given, however, Sumner had sold his interest in the land to Camp and Brooks, the co-plaintiffs with Greenland had conveyed the same by warranty deed; but TVetherbee claimed and offered to show by parol evidence, that the sole purpose of this conveyance was to secure a pre-existing debt from Sumner to Camp and Brooks, and that consequently it amounted to a mortgage only, leaving in Sumner, under our-statute, the usual right of a mortgagor to occupy and control the land until foreclosure. He also claimed that the
But if the court should be against him on this branch of the case, Wetherbee claimed further that replevin could not be maintained for the hoops, because he had cut the timber in good faith, relying upon a permission which he supposed proceeded from the parties having lawful right to give it, and had, by the expenditure of his labor and money, converted the trees into chattels immensely more valuable than they were, as they stood in the forest, and thereby he had made such chattels his own. And he offered to show that the standing timber was worth twenty-five dollars only, while the hoops replevied were shown by the evidence to be worth near seven hundred dollars; also, that at the time of obtaining the license from Sumner he had no knowledge of the sale of Sumner’s interest, but, on the other hand, had obtained an abstract of the title to the premises from a firm of land agents at the county seat, who kept an abstract book of titles to land in that county, which abstract showed the title to be in Green and Sumner, and that he then purchased the timber, relying upon the abstract, and upon Sumner’s statement that he was authorized by Green to make the sale. The evidence offered to establish these facts was rejected by the court, and the plaintiffs obtained judgment.
The principal question which, from this statement, appears to be presented by the record, may be stated thus: Has a party who has taken the property of another in good faith, and in reliance upon a supposed right, without intention to commit wrong, and by the expenditure of his money or labor, worked upon it so great a transformation as that
The objections to allowing the owner of the trees to reclaim the property under such circumstances are, that it visits the involuntary wrong-doer too severely for his unintentional trespass, and at the same time compensates the owner beyond all reason for the injury he has sustained. In the redress of private injuries the law aims not so much to punish the wrong-doer as to compensate the sufferer for his injuries; and the cases in which it goes farther and inflicts punitory or vindictive penalties are those in which, the wrong-doer has committed the wrong recklessly, willfully, or maliciously, and under circumstances presenting elements of aggravation. Where vicious motive or reckless disregard of right are not involved, to inflict upon a person who has taken the property of another, a penalty equal to twenty or thirty times its value, and to compensate the owner in a proportion equally enormous, is so opposed to all legal idea of justice and right and to the rules which regulate the recovery of damages generally, that if permitted by the law at all, it must stand out as an anomaly and must rest upon peculiar reasons.
As a general rule, one whose property has been appropriated by another without authority has a right to follow it and recover the possession from any one who may have received it; and if, in the meantime, it has been increased in value by the addition of labor or money, the owner may, nevertheless, reclaim it, provided there has been no destruction of substantial identity. So far the authorities are agreed. A man cannot generally be deprived of his property except by his own voluntary act or by operation of law; and if unauthorized parties have bestowed expense or
It does not become necessary for us to consider whether
The cases of confusion of goods are closely analogous-It has always been held that he who, without fraud, intentional wrong, or reckless disregard of the rights of others, mingled his goods with those of another person, in such manner that they could not be distinguished, should, nevertheless, be protected in his ownership so far as the circumstances would permit. The question of motive here becomes of the highest importance; for, as Chancellor Kent says, if the commingling of property “was willfully made without mutual consent, * * the common law gave the
entire property, without airy account, to him whose property was originally invaded, and its distinct character destroyed. Popham’s Rep. 38, pl. 2. If A will willfully intermix his corn or hay with that of B, or casts his gold into another’s crucible, so that it becomes impossible to
The important question on this branch of the case appears to us to be, whether standing trees, when cut and manufactured into hoops, are to be regarded as so far changed in character that their identity can be said to be destroyed within the meaning of the authorities. And as we enter upon a discussion of this question, it is evident at once, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to discover any invariable and satisfactory test which can be applied to all the .cases which arise in such infinite variety. “ If grain be taken
It may often happen that no difflculty will be experienced in determining the identity of a piece of timber which has been taken and built into a house; but no one disputes that the right of the original owner is gone in such a case. A particular piece' of wood might perhaps bo traced without trouble into a church organ, or other equally valuable article; but no one would defend a rule of law which, because the identity could be determined by the senses, would permit the owner of the wood to appropriate a musical instrument, a hundred or a thousand times the
No test which satisfies the reason of the law can be applied in the adjustment of questions of title to chattels by accession, unless it keeps in view the circumstance of relative values. When we bear in mind the fact that what the law aims at is the accomplishment of substantial equity, we shall readily perceive that the fact of the value of the materials having been increased a hundred fold, is of more importance in the adjustment than any chemical change or mechanical transformation, which, however radical, neither is expensive to the party making it, nor adds materially to the value. There may be complete changes with so little improvement in value, that there could be no hardship in giving the owner of the original materials the improved
We are of opinion that the court erred in rejecting the testimony offered. The defendant, we think, had a right to show that he had-manufactured the hoops in good faith, and in the belief that he had the proper authority to do so; and if he should succeed in making that showing, he was entitled to have the jury instructed that the title to the timber was changed by a substantial change of identity, and that the remedy of the plaintiff was an action to recover damages for the unintentional trespass.
This view will dispose of the case upon the present record. Upon the other points we are not prepared to assent entirely to the views of the plaintiff in error. It does not appear to us important that the deed from Sumner to Camp and Brooks was intended as a mere security. Under such a deed Sumner would have had a right of redemption, but it does not follow that he would have been entitled to possession, and to all the other rights of mortgagor in the courts of law. When a deed absolute in form is given to secure a debt, the purpose generally is, to vest in the grantee a larger power of control and disposition than he would have by statute under an ordinary mortgage; and we are not prepared to say that the statute— Comp. L., § 4614 — which forbids ejectment by mortgagees before foreclosure was intended to reach a case of that description. We think, however, that the mere circumstance of the sale of Sumner’s interest did not operate in law as a revocation of the authority previously given to Sumner to sell the timber. It is quite possible that Green
For the reasons given, the judgment must be reversed, with costs, and a new trial ordered.