Farmers Elevator & LiveStock Co. v. Satre

• Decision Date: 11 December 1923
• Docket Number: 35112
• Citation: 195 N.W. 1011,196 Iowa 1076
• Parties: FARMERS ELEVATOR & LIVESTOCK COMPANY, Appellant, v. A. G. SATRE, Appellee
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

195 N.W. 1011

196 Iowa 1076

FARMERS ELEVATOR & LIVESTOCK COMPANY, Appellant, v. A. G. SATRE, Appellee

No. 35112

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

December 11, 1923

Appeal from Hamilton District Court.--R. M. WRIGHT, Judge.

ACTION to recover on notes and book account, aided by attachment. Among other property levied upon were a Sampson truck and one Ford touring car. Jury was waived, and case submitted to the court. The trial court held that the track and automobile were exempt. Facts appear in the opinion. Plaintiff appeals.--Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

Martin & Alexander, for appellant.

O. J Henderson, for appellee.

ARTHUR J. PRESTON, C. J., EVANS and FAVILLE, JJ., concur.

OPINION

ARTHUR, J.

I.

There is no dispute in the facts. Certain facts were stipulated and the only evidence offered was the testimony of defendant. The controversy involves only questions of law. In May, 1921, plaintiff brought this suit on certain notes and account aggregating about $ 1,600, aided by attachment. Among other property, the writ was levied upon a Sampson farm truck and a Ford automobile owned by defendant. Defendant served the statutory notice on the sheriff, claiming the truck and automobile to be exempt. At the time of the levy of the attachment, defendant was a farmer, the head of a family, and a resident of Hamilton County, Iowa. The defendant claimed, and the lower court held, that the Sampson truck was a proper tool or implement of a farmer and, as such, within the protection of the exemption statute. The defendant claimed, and the lower court held, that the Ford automobile was an exempt vehicle, specifically protected by the exemption statute to any farmer who habitually uses it in earning his living. From such holding and judgment in accordance therewith this appeal is taken.

II. Errors relied upon for reversal are that the court erred in holding the truck and car to be exempt from attachment or execution; that, it being shown without dispute that appellee had the very articles which the law says he may hold as exempt, he will not be permitted to claim other and different articles; that the truck and automobile claimed by appellee as exempt are both vehicles, and, as the law prescribes the kind of vehicles which appellee may claim as exempt, the court erred in holding them to be exempt, where the evidence shows without dispute the proper vehicle and wagon enumerated by the statute; that the plain wording of the statute excludes the property claimed by the appellee as exempt,--the truck and the automobile; and that the court erred in extending the plain terms and meaning of the statute to include any other property than that enumerated.

Appellee relies, to sustain the judgment, upon the propositions that exemption statutes are liberally construed; that all proper tools and instruments of a farmer are exempt, under the statute; that the statute provides an additional specific exemption to a farmer of any vehicle by the use of which he habitually earns his living.

III. Whether or not the truck and automobile in question are exempt to appellee must be determined under our exemption statute. It may be said to be elementary that all exemptions are statutory. The portion of our exemption statute, Code Section 4008, to be considered in the instant case reads:

"* * * the proper tools, instruments or books of the debtor if a farmer * * *; if the debtor is a physician, public officer farmer, teamster, or other laborer, a team, consisting of not more than two horses or mules, or two yoke of cattle, and the wagon or other vehicle, with the proper harness or tackle, by the use of which he habitually earns his living, otherwise one horse; * * *"

It may be stated as the universal rule that exemption statutes are liberally construed in favor of the debtor But, as we said in Voris v. West, 180 Iowa 138, 162 N.W. 836:

"While it is true that an exemption grant will be liberally construed to effectuate the purpose of the grant, yet we must find the grant in the statute, or no exemption can exist; and it is not for this court to say that the legislature intended a larger grant of exemptions than is given by the plain wording of the statute."

IV. Appellee testified with respect to the use of the truck in substance as follows: That he used it in running his business as a farmer, for hauling feed, grain, and stock to market, for hauling salt and other articles and feed from town to the farm; that, "outside of the Ford car, that it is used more than any other farm implement on the farm;" that he used the truck all but five or six weeks in the year; that he used it throughout the wintertime, whenever the roads were fit to use it; that he used it in hauling articles back and forth on the farm, such as bedding, posts, fencing, and things of that kind; that he used it whenever it was necessary to do any hauling. Respecting the Ford automobile, the facts testified to by defendant were:

"Speaking generally, I do not suppose there is a day but what we use that Ford car, because it is used in delivering cream and eggs, and if anything goes wrong on the farm, for repairs or whatever it is, we have always got to have that car, and in other of my business I have to attend to; and it is the only means I have of getting around, because I have no buggy, and I use the Ford for attending to all my business in general,--I mean business connected with my farm. When I have occasion to go to town for supplies or groceries, I use the Ford. I haul cream with the Ford car: we sell cream and eggs. In connection with my farm and looking after my business, if I have occasion to go to town or elsewhere, I use the Ford for that purpose."

Defendant further testified that, at the time the levy was made, he had one farm wagon, two horses, free from incumbrance, a truck wagon, with a hayrack on for hauling hay and for threshing and six horses and three colts; that all but one team was mortgaged; that he did not mortgage this one team because he understood that he could hold the team as exempt property; that he did not mortgage the truck because he understood that it was a farm implement, and was...