Sig Ellingson & Co. v. De Vries

• Citation: 199 F.2d 677
• Decision Date: 17 November 1952
• Docket Number: No. 14575.,14575.
• Parties: SIG ELLINGSON & CO. v. DE VRIES et al.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

199 F.2d 677 (1952)

SIG ELLINGSON & CO. v. DE VRIES et al.

No. 14575.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

October 28, 1952.

Rehearing Denied November 17, 1952.

Clarence G. Myers, Chicago, Ill., and William C. Blethen, Mankato, Minn. (Myers & Snerly, Chicago, Ill., and Wilson, Blethen & Ogle, Mankato, Minn., were with them on the brief), for appellant.

J. Neil Morton, St. Paul, Minn. (Dudley Weible, Forest City, Iowa, Briggs, Gilbert, Morton, Kyle & Macartney, St. Paul, Minn., and Weible & Slife, Forest City, Iowa, were with him on the brief), for appellees.

Before GARDNER, Chief Judge, and WOODROUGH and THOMAS, Circuit Judges.

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is taken to reverse the judgment which was rendered in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendant in accordance with the opinion of the District Court, reported at 100 F.Supp. 781. As shown in the opinion, the action was for the recovery of the stipulated value of 33 head of cattle which were sold by the defendant Sig Ellingson and Company, at the South St. Paul, Minnesota, livestock market in its usual course of business as a livestock commission merchant licensed as a market agency under the Packers and Stockyards Act, 42 Stat. 159, 7 U.S.C.A. § 181 et seq. It sold the cattle for one Tobias Brackey from whom it had received them for sale, and it accounted to him for the proceeds. He was not a party to this action. But the plaintiffs claimed and the court found that Tobias Brackey had obtained possession of the cattle from the plaintiffs, who were the true owners, by bidding them in at an auction sale held by plaintiffs in the usual course of their business at Buffalo Center, Iowa, and by assuming to pay plaintiffs for them with his check on the bank at Lake Mills, Iowa. When the check was presented in due course it was protested for insufficient funds and this suit was brought against the commission merchant, Sig Ellingson and Company. Plaintiffs claimed and the court held that because the check was worthless the title to the cattle did not pass from plaintiffs to Brackey and that when the defendant accepted them from Brackey and sold them for his account for slaughter it became liable to plaintiffs for conversion of them. Accordingly, plaintiffs had the judgment for the agreed value which is here sought to be reversed.

As fully disclosed in its opinion, the trial court concluded that under the law of Iowa where the plaintiffs auctioned off the cattle and Brackey obtained possession of them for his worthless check, the title did not pass and the ownership and the right to retake them remained in the plaintiffs. Birmingham v. Rice Bros., 238 Iowa 410, 26 N.W.2d 39, 2 A.L.R.2d 1108; Crescent Chevrolet v. Lewis, 230 Iowa 1074, 300 N.W. 260. It concluded that the Minnesota law was to the same effect. Gustafson v. Equitable Loan Ass'n, 186 Minn. 236, 243 N.W. 106.

Proceeding then to examination of the laws pertaining to market agencies of Iowa, the state in which the plaintiffs delivered the cattle to Brackey, and of Minnesota, the state in which the defendant sold them as a market agency for Brackey, the court concluded that the law was substantially the same in both states and that their respective courts hold a market agency liable to the true owner for conversion where it receives from its principal and sells for his account livestock of which its principal is not the owner.

The opinion of the trial court sets forth the controlling decisions in Iowa and in Minnesota which we think support its conclusions. The appellant has re-analyzed and discussed the decisions extensively in a very thorough and painstaking brief on the appeal, but we have found no error in the trial court's conclusions as to the law of Iowa and of Minnesota, nor in the application thereof to the undisputed facts in the case.

The appellant...