Fairbanks-Morse Company v. Coulson Stock Food Company
| Decision Date | 03 October 1910 |
| Citation | 131 S.W. 894,151 Mo.App. 260 |
| Parties | FAIRBANKS-MORSE COMPANY, Appellant, v. COULSON STOCK FOOD COMPANY, Defendant; ROSCOE REYBURN, Interpleader and Respondent |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court.--Hon. James H. Slover, Judge.
AFFIRMED.
Judgment affirmed.
L. A Laughlin for appellant.
Halbert H. McCluer for respondent.
This is an attachment suit and the contest is between plaintiff the attaching creditor and the interpleader, a mortgagee. The suit originated before a justice of the peace. A jury was waived in the circuit court where the cause was tried on an appeal and judgment was rendered for the interpleader. Plaintiff appealed.
The material facts thus may be stated. Plaintiff a manufacturer sold and delivered some electrical machinery to the Coulson Stock Food Company, a corporation incorporated in Nevada but doing business in Kansas City. Part of the purchase price was paid but three notes given by the Coulson Company for the remainder aggregating one hundred and fifteen dollars, were not paid and are the foundation of the present action. These notes given at the time of the sale, October 20, 1906, were signed "Coulson Stock Food Co., Inc. by A. R. Coulson, Pres.," and their payment was secured by what we shall call a chattel mortgage which was executed by the Coulson Company at the time of the execution of the notes and which covered the property sold by plaintiff to that company. This mortgage was not filed in the office of the recorder of deeds until January 9, 1907.
The Coulson Stock Food Company was incorporated in Nevada in September, 1906, with an authorized capital of $ 250,000. The articles recited that 131004 shares of the capital stock of the par value of one dollar each were subscribed, of which 131,000 shares were subscribed by A. R. Coulson. None of the subscription price of this stock was paid into the treasury and the corporation existed on paper only. Coulson, its promoter, lived in Kansas City and began the business for which the corporation was organized on money and credit of his own. He leased property in his own name but the sign he put on the building bore the name "The Coulson Stock Food Company." He transacted some business in the name of the corporation, but all of such business, including the payments on the machinery bought of plaintiff, was done with his own money and with that he borrowed individually. In November, 1906, he borrowed twenty-one hundred dollars of a bank and interpleader signed the note as surety. To secure himself, interpleader took a note of twenty-one hundred dollars from Coulson, the payment of which was secured by a chattel mortgage executed by Coulson and conveying all the personal property belonging to the stock food business including the machinery in controversy which had been installed in the building where that business was being conducted. The mortgage stated that all this property belonged to Coulson individually though it described the building as "now occupied by the A. R. Coulson Stock Food Company." This mortgage was filed for record November 31, 1906, more than a month before plaintiff filed its mortgage. Interpleader was compelled to pay Coulson's note to the bank and default having occurred in the performance by Coulson of the conditions of the mortgage, interpleader took possession of the mortgaged property; sold it under the terms of the mortgage and afterward bought the property in controversy from the purchaser at that sale. Plaintiff then brought suit against the Coulson Stock Food Company on the unpaid notes, had a writ of attachment issued in aid of the action, and caused the writ to be levied on the machinery it had sold to the Coulson Company.
A number of declarations of law were asked by plaintiff and refused by the court. We are convinced the judgment was for the right party and do not find that special reference to the declarations of law is essential to a proper disposition of the case. In...
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