Corbett v. Riddle

• Decision Date: 20 November 1913
• Docket Number: 1177.
• Citation: 209 F. 811
• Parties: CORBETT v. RIDDLE.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

209 F. 811

CORBETT v. RIDDLE.

No. 1177.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

November 20, 1913

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

S. H Sutherland, of Clintwood, Va. (Sutherland & Sutherland, of Clintwood, Va., on the brief), for appellant.

George E. Walker, of Charlottesville, Va. (Perkins, Perkins &amp Walker, of Charlottesville, Va., on the brief), for appellee.

Before PRITCHARD and WOODS, Circuit Judges, and ROSE, District Judge.

ROSE District Judge.

In the summer of 1912 the bankrupts had a contract to construct a section of a railroad in Dickenson county, in the Western district of Virginia. They needed a steam shovel. The appellant had one. He was a citizen of Pennsylvania. On June 29, 1912, he agreed to let the bankrupts take it from Pennsylvania to Virginia. This agreement was in writing. In terms it professed to be a lease of the shovel for six months. The aggregate rent was fixed at $5,600. Three thousand dollars of this was paid in cash. For the remaining $2,600, five promissory notes were given. Each of these notes bore interest. One of them matured on the 1st of each month from September, 1912, to January, 1913, both inclusive. The bankrupts, if they kept the agreement, might, within ten days after the expiration of the six months' term, buy the shovel for $10. The bankrupts were to keep it in order. Without the written consent of the appellant, they were not to remove the shovel from the vicinity to which it was to be originally shipped. If they did not buy it, they were to return it to Pennsylvania. Upon any breach of the agreement the appellant had the right to repossess himself of it. The shovel was taken to Dickenson county. On August 23, 1912, the bankrupts made an assignment for the benefit of creditors. It was duly recorded in Dickenson county. Among other property specifically conveyed by it was the shovel. The latter was assigned subject to a 'claim' of the appellant 'for $2,600 balance of purchase money. ' The assignees took possession of it. Some six weeks later, and on October 11th, the appellant for the first time recorded the so-called rental contract. On October 17th an involuntary petition for adjudication was filed against the bankrupts. On October 29th the appellant, in the circuit court for the county, instituted an action of detinue to recover the shovel. Under that writ the sheriff made a constructive seizure of it. In fact, it remained in the possession of the assignee for creditors. On November 29th the bankrupts were adjudicated such. A trustee was subsequently appointed. He duly qualified. He peaceably took possession of the shovel. By order of the court he rented it to some third parties for $5 a day. Subsequently the court ordered it sold. From this order the appeal was taken. The appellant then asked the court below to direct that the shovel be delivered to him. He said that for three reasons there should have been no adjudication in bankruptcy. insolvent. (2) The petitioning creditors had received preferences. (3) The bankrupts had not resided or had their domicile or principal place of business in the district for the greater portion of the six months immediately preceding the filing of the petition.

As the act of bankruptcy alleged was the making of a general assignment for the benefit of creditors, insolvency was immaterial. Moreover, the appellant was not entitled thus collaterally to attack the adjudication on any of the grounds set up by him. It was a judgment in rem, binding against all the world, so far as it determined the defendants therein to be bankrupts, and that their property was subject to administration in bankruptcy. Manson v. Williams, 213 U.S. 455, 29 Sup.Ct. 519, 53 L.Ed. 869; Cook v. Robinson (C.C.A. 9th Cir.) 28 Am.Bankr.Rep. 182, 194 F. 785, 114 C.C.A. 505.

The appellant contended that, even if the adjudication was valid, he was nevertheless entitled to the possession of the shovel as against the trustee in bankruptcy because the contract under which the bankrupts obtained possession of the shovel was not one of conditional sale, required by the law of Virginia to be recorded, but one of hiring, to which the recording statute had no application. By its terms the bankrupts bound themselves absolutely and in all events to pay more than 99.8 per cent. of the full value of the shovel ostensibly for its use for a period of six months, during which its deterioration in value would not have been great. More than half of this sum was to be paid in advance. For the balance they gave their negotiable interest-bearing notes. The requirement that if they should elect to purchase they should pay an additional $10 was obviously a mere form. If the notes had been paid, of course the $10 would have been. The shovel would have been worth more than that to sell as old iron. Moreover, if they did not pay the $10 they bound themselves to return the shovel to Pennsylvania. That would have cost many times $10.

With great industry and learning the counsel for the appellant has urged upon our attention many cases in which agreements, some of which it would be difficult to distinguish from this, have been held to have been bailments and not conditional sales. We deem it altogether unnecessary to review or analyze them. In Virginia the law is clearly settled. Where a somewhat similar contention to that here made was set up, the Supreme Court of Appeals said:

'It was in substance and effect a sale and must be so declared. It does not matter by what name the parties chose to designate it. That does not determine its character. The courts look beyond mere names and within to see the real nature of an agreement, and determine from all its provisions taken together, and not from the name that has been given to it by the parties or from some isolated provision, its legal character and effect. ' Arbuckle v. Gates, 95 Va. 802, 30 S.E. 496.

To the same effect is a decision of the highest court of West Virginia (Baldwin v. Van Wagner, 33 W.Va. 293, 10 S.E. 716).

In the federal courts, whether an agreement, under which one party obtains possession from another of a chattel in which the latter seeks to reserve some kind of title, shall be construed to be a hiring a conditional sale, or a mortgage, depends altogether upon its effect and not at all upon what the parties call it. Hervey v. Rhode Island Locomotive Works, 93 U.S. 664, 23 L.Ed. 1003; Herryford v. Davis, 102 U.S. 235, 26 L.Ed. 160; Chicago Railway Co. v....