Butler-Kyser Mfg. Co. v. Central of Georgia Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 17 December 1914 |
| Docket Number | 567 |
| Citation | 190 Ala. 646,67 So. 393 |
| Parties | BUTLER-KYSER MFG. CO. v. CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. et al. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Coosa County; S.L. Brewer, Judge.
Detinue by the Butler-Kyser Manufacturing Company against the Central of Georgia Railway Company, in which Weil Bros. intervene as claimants. Judgment for the claimants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Riddle Ellis & Riddle, of Goodwater, for appellant.
George A. Sorrell, of Alexander City, for appellees.
Appellant sued appellee in detinue to recover 64 bales of cotton. Appellee railway company suggested Weil Bros. as claimants who did interpose claims to the cotton sued for as is authorized by statute. Code 1907, §§ 3778-3792. The trial resulted in a judgment for the claimants, from which judgment plaintiff prosecutes this appeal.
The cotton in question was bought from various farmers who raised it, by a mercantile firm at Kellyton, Ala., and sold by this firm to a bank at Alexander City, Ala., and by the bank sold to Weil Bros., claimants, at Montgomery, Ala., and was in the possession of the railway company as a common carrier, when the plaintiff had it seized under its writ of detinue.
The plaintiff seems to base its sole claim and title to the property upon a contract which it had with O.D. Mitchell & Co. for the sale of commercial fertilizer, by which contract O.D. Mitchell & Co. were to sell the fertilizer to the farmers and take their notes for the purchase price, which notes were to be the property of plaintiff until O.D Mitchell & Co. had paid plaintiff in full the purchase price of the fertilizer; and O.D. Mitchell & Co. were to collect the notes as agents of plaintiff.
The trial court properly gave the affirmative charge for the claimants. The plaintiff did not prove title to a single bale of the cotton, nor did it offer any evidence which was excluded, which, if allowed, would have proved title to a single bale of cotton. The most that plaintiff's evidence tended to show was an equitable claim to some part of the cotton, but as to which particular part or bale, there was no evidence to show, or tending to identify it. The burden was, of course, on the plaintiff to prove that it had a general or a special property in the cotton or some identified part thereof, and the right to the immediate possession, and, if it has never had the actual possession, it must show a legal title. Reese v. Harris, 27 Ala. 301; Stoker v. Yerby, 11 Ala. 322; Hensley v. Orendorff, 152 Ala. 599, 44 So. 869; Keyser v. Maas, 111 Ala. 390, 21 So. 346.
An equitable title will not support an action of detinue. Jones v. Anderson, 76 Ala. 427; Ballard v Mayfield, 107 Ala. 396, 18 So. 29. While the statute (Code, § 6039) has changed the rule as to statutory claim suits, it has not changed the rule as to...
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