Murphy v. S. C. & P. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 23 March 1881
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court
• Parties: MURPHY v. S. C. & P. R. CO.

55 Iowa 473

8 N.W. 320

MURPHY

v.S. C. & P. R. CO.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed March 23, 1881.

Appeal from Woodbury district court.

The plaintiff brings this action to recover $504 for the alleged negligently setting fire to the prairie and permitting it to escape, thereby burning 168 tons of hay, of which the plaintiff alleges he was the owner. The answer, amongst other things, denies that plaintiff was the owner of any of the hay alleged to have been burned. The trial was to a jury, and resulted in a verdict for plaintiff for $270. The defendant appeals.Joy & Wright, for appellant.

I. E. Selleck and Tredway & Cleland, for appellee.

DAY, J.

Respecting his ownership of the hay in question the plaintiff testified as follows: “This hay was on unenclosed prairie. The land upon which I cut this grass and stacked the hay was not mine. I had gone on to the land, cut the grass, and stacked it. My claim to be the owner of the hay is based on this: I cut it and put it up; that is all the claim I have. I had no license to cut or stack hay there.”

The defendant asked the court to instruct the jury as follows: “If the jury finds, from the testimony, that the plaintiff had cut from and stacked the hay, for the burning of which he seeks to recover in this action, upon land which he did not own, and if you further find that the plaintiff had no license or permission to cut the grass upon said land, and stack the hay made therefrom thereon, the title to said hay so cut and stacked was not in the plaintiff, and he cannot maintain an action to recover for the destruction thereof by fire which burned over the prairie upon which the same was stacked.” The court refused this instruction and instructed the jury as follows: “In the absence of some title or right of defendant in the land upon which the grass was stacked, and from which it was grown and cut, the ownership of the hay in plaintiff, as against defendant, is not disproved by showing that the said land from which the grass was grown and cut, and upon which it was stacked, was not the property of plaintiff, nor can the ownership of plaintiff be disproved as against defendant by showing that the plaintiff had no license or permit from the owner of the land to cut the grass or stack the same upon the land where it was burned.” The action of the court in giving this instruction and in refusing the one asked is assigned as error.

1. Where a party trespasses upon land of another, but in good faith and under a supposed proper authority, and takes therefrom property upon which by his own labor he bestows a value very greatly disproportionate to the value of the raw material, it has been held that he acquires title by accession to the manufactured article, and that the original owner can recover only the value of the material taken. In Witherbee v. Green, 22 Mich. 311, where timber of the value of $25 had been, in the exercise of what was supposed to be a proper authority, converted into hoops of the value of $700, it was held that the title to the property in its converted form passed to the party by whose labor, in good faith, the change had been wrought. In Royal Mining Co. v. Hintin, 37 Mich. 332, where cord-wood was cut upon the land of another, hauled to a landing and piled, and was then seized and sold by the owner, it was held that the parties cutting the wood were not entitled to compensation, though they acted in good faith. The case was distinguished from Witherbee v. Green, in that the identity of the converted property was not destroyed, nor its value greatly increased.

A wilful trespasser, however, acquires no property in the goods of another by any change wrought in them by his labor or skill, however great the change may be, provided it can be proved that the improved article was made from the original material. See Salisbury v. McKoon, 3 Comstock, 379. In this case it was held, where a quantity of corn was taken from the owner by a wilful trespasser, and converted by him into whisky, that the property was not changed, and that the whisky belonged to the owner of the original materials. In Chandler v. Edson, 9 John. 362, it was held that where a party entered upon the land of another and cut down trees, of which he made shingles, he acquired no property in the timber or shingles. In Brock v. Smith, 14 Ark. 431, it was held that where one entered upon land as a trespasser, felled timber, and split it up into cord-wood, the bestowal of his labor in splitting the timber into cord-wood neither wrought a change in its specific character nor gave him any title by accession. To the same effect are also the following cases: Betts v. Lee, 5 John. 348;Nesbit v. St. Paul Lumber Co. 21 Minn. 491;Brown v. Sax, 7 Cowen, 95;Freeman v. Underwood, 66 Me. 229. In this last case the defendant purchased a quantity of blueberries from persons who picked them from plaintiff's land as trespassers, and...