Fisher v. Bank of Spanish fork

• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: WOLFE, Justice.
• Citation: Fisher v. Bank of Spanish fork, 93 Utah 514, 74 P.2d 659 (Utah 1937)
• Decision Date: 27 December 1937
• Docket Number: 5955
• Parties: FISHER v. BANK OF SPANISH FORK et al

74 P.2d 659

93 Utah 514

FISHER v. BANK OF SPANISH FORK et al

No. 5955

Supreme Court of Utah

December 27, 1937

Rehearing denied February 28, 1938.

Appeal from District Court, Fourth District, Utah County; Dallas H Young, Judge.

Action by Thomas L. Fisher against the Bank of Spanish Fork and others. From an adverse judgment, the plaintiff appeals.

AFFIRMED.

A Ladru Jensen, of Salt Lake City, and Jensen & Jensen, of Ephraim, for appellant.

R. H. Andrus, of Spanish Fork and George W. Worthen, of Provo, for respondents.

WOLFE, Justice. FOLLAND, C. J., and EPHRAIM HANSON, MOFFAT, and LARSON, JJ., concur.

OPINION

WOLFE, Justice.

Appeal from a ruling rejecting an offer in evidence of a purported mortgage on 1935 crops, which instrument was the basis of a claim that defendants had converted the crops on which it was claimed plaintiff had a mortgage right. Leslie E. and Eric O. Bylund and their respective wives, Delila and Sophia, executed to the State Land Board on October 28, 1932, a chattel mortgage on the following described personal property, to wit:

"All the crops of whatsoever kind or nature which have been or may hereafter be sown, planted, cultivated, grown or harvested during the year 1933, and until the debt secured by this mortgage is fully paid, on the following described tract of land in the County of Juab, State of Utah: [The description of the land is not material to the point in issue.]" (The italicized phrase is presented for construction.)

The mortgage was filed as No. 49,464 in the recorder's office of Juab county on November 8, 1932. On September 7, 1933, the lands on which the crops mortgaged were grown were conveyed by Leslie E. Bylund and his wife to Eric O. Bylund, father of Leslie, the said lands having been conveyed by Eric O. Bylund to his son some time in 1930, the record title remaining in Leslie E. Bylund until this reconveyance on September 7, 1933.

On July 1, 1935, Eric O. Bylund executed and delivered a chattel mortgage to the Bank of Spanish Fork purporting to cover the wheat crop of 1935 upon the said lands. The bank, on August 1, 1935, by its cashier, H. A. Gardner, took the wheat and sold and delivered it to the defendant Leland Milling Company. Plaintiff claimed that the language of the mortgage to the State Land Board above quoted covered the crops of 1933, 1934, and 1935, and for the next two years covered by a renewal affidavit; that, therefore, the bank, Gardner, and the Milling company were guilty of conversion.

This action was brought to recover for conversion of the 1935 crops. It is alleged that the State Land Board, subsequent to August 1, 1933, and before this action was brought, assigned for a valuable consideration all its causes of action against defendants for conversion of said wheat. No point is raised as to the assignability of the tort action for conversion. Defendants on the trial objected to the introduction of the mortgage of October 28th to the State Land Board on the ground that the language thereof was too indefinite to cover the 1935 crops, or at least too indefinite to give notice to third parties that it covered such crops, if it was intended to do so. The objection was sustained. The trial court refused to admit the instrument on the ground urged. The plaintiff, thus being prevented from introducing the very instrument on which his claimed rights were founded, could not show a conversion and a nonsuit resulted. The assignment of errors brings up the court's ruling rejecting the instrument as error.

Defendants for the first time on appeal contended that the mortgage in question could not cover the 1935 crops because at the time of its execution, Eric O. Bylund was not the record owner of the land on which the 1935 crops were to be grown, his son Leslie being the record owner. The contention was based on the ground that a crop mortgage covering future crops grown on land not then owned by the mortgagor is void. The defendants had interposed a general denial to the charge of conversion. It was contended that such a defense of void mortgage should have been specifically pleaded and urged in the lower court. Under our view of this case, it is unnecessary to decide these questions. In passing, it may be pointed out that it is the policy of the law to require parties to expose all their theories on which they base a claim or a defense in the lower courts so that their adversaries and the court may be apprised of them. A new theory raised for the first time in the appellate court as a basis to sustain a claim or a defense will ordinarily not be considered. But distinction must be made between a theory of claim or defense and a principle of law which, overlooked by the lower court in its reasoning, would sustain its ruling. A right ruling sustainable on correct legal reasoning, even though such correct reasoning takes in legal syllogisms not entertained by the lower court, will be upheld even though the lower court based the ruling on wrong legal reasoning. The appellate court is not confined to an examination of the correctness of the legal propositions on which the lower court based its ruling, but will examine the correctness of the ruling and may sustain it on reasoning which involved an entirely different chain of legal syllogisms. The distinction between urging new legal reasoning in the appellate court to sustain or defeat a ruling of the lower court and a new theory may in some cases be difficult to define. It is better left to specific cases. Suffice it to say now that we do not need to make this distinction because the result we reach is based on a finding that the language of the mortgage did not cover the 1935 crops.

For the same reason, it is unnecessary to consider whether the deduction may be made from the evidence that Eric O. Bylund on October 28, 1932, had some interest in the land at that time, which even under the theory that a crop mortgage is void if given by a person who does not at the time of the mortgage own or lease the land on which the crops mortgaged are to be grown, would have prevented the mortgage from being void.

For the same reason, it is unnecessary to determine whether at common law future crops yet unsown might be mortgaged and what the distinction between perennial and annual crops might be under such a rule; nor what the distinction under such rule would be between perennial crops, the natural fruit of the land and the natural increase in flocks or herds or the wool yet ungrown; nor whether the cases of Bonneville Lumber Co. v. J. G. Peppard Seed Co., 72 Utah 463, 271 P. 226, and Carlquist v. Coltharp, 67 Utah 514, 248 P. 481, 248 P. 481, 47 A. L. R. 765, expressly or by implication hold that chattel mortgages may be placed on crops yet ungrown or unsown; nor is it necessary to determine whether section 13-0-2, R. S. Utah 1933, pertaining to the voidness of mortgages after three years unless renewed by affidavit, by implication permits a mortgage on crops to be grown in the future within the first three years and within two years additional if renewed. A careful reading of that statute would seem to leave this question untouched...