Baylor v. Butterfass
| Decision Date | 17 December 1900 |
| Docket Number | 12,294 - (156) |
| Parties | JOSEPH BAYLOR v. FRED BUTTERFASS |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Carver county against Fred Butterfass, defendant, and Julius Pieper, garnishee. Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company intervened as claimant of the garnished fund. The issues between plaintiff and claimant were tried before Cadwell, J., who found in favor of claimant. From an order denying a motion for a new trial plaintiff appealed. Affirmed.
Acceptance of Order by Debtor.
An order on a debtor by his creditor directing him to pay his indebtedness to the person named therein, and an acceptance thereof by the debtor, operate as an equitable assignment of the debt.
Filing Assignment -- Laws 1899, c. 268.
Such an assignment is void, under Laws 1899, c. 268, as to the creditors of the person making it, when not filed as therein provided, unless the good faith of the transaction be affirmatively shown. It is held in this case that such good faith is sufficiently shown by the evidence.
Parol Evidence Inadmissible.
Such an order, and the acceptance thereof, being in writing, are not open to contradiction or explanation by evidence of a parol contemporaneous agreement.
Future Earnings of Mortgaged Machine.
Whether future earnings of a threshing-machine outfit, there being no existing contract under which they are to accrue, may be the subject of assignment or mortgage by the owner of the machine, quaere?
P. W Morrison, for appellant.
Brown, Reed, Merrill & Buffington and F. R. Allen, for respondent.
After the commencement of this action and the service of the garnishee summons, claimant, Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company, appeared and made claim to the indebtedness due from the garnishee to defendant, and served and filed a complaint setting forth the grounds of its claim. Issue was joined between plaintiff and claimant, the cause was tried, and resulted in judgment for claimant, and plaintiff appeals from an order denying a new trial.
The cause was tried before the court without a jury. The findings of the trial court are not found in the record, but, as the correctness of such findings is not challenged in any respect by appellant, their absence is not important. The decision having been in favor of claimant, we take it that the allegations of its complaint are found to be true. At any rate, there seems to be no question or controversy as to the facts. All the assignments of error are directed to rulings made on the trial, and present questions relative to the legal rights of the parties only.
The facts are as follows: In 1898 claimant sold and delivered to defendant a threshing-machine separator for the agreed price of $800, which defendant paid by his promissory notes. To secure the payment of such notes, he executed and delivered to claimant a chattel mortgage upon and covering one-half of all earnings of the machine during the years 1897, 1898, 1899. The indebtedness due and owing from garnishee to defendant, the subject-matter of the controversy between the parties, represents earnings of the threshing machine for threshing his grain in the year 1899; and claimant's right thereto is based in part upon this mortgage. On September 21, 1899, defendant made and delivered to claimant an order on the debtor (garnishee) directing him to pay such indebtedness to claimant. Such order was presented to the debtor before the commencement of this action, and was duly accepted by him in writing. Claimant also bases its right to the indebtedness upon this order. The order was given to claimant to be applied in part payment of the mortgage debt. Plaintiff contends that the mortgage and order are both void, -- the former because the future earnings of the machine, there being no evidence of an existing contract under which they were to accrue, could not be mortgaged; and the latter because founded upon the void mortgage, and given in compliance therewith. Plaintiff also complains of certain rulings made on the trial of the cause, which he urges are reversible error.
The question as to the validity or invalidity of the mortgage need not be considered or...
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