Graves Bros., Inc. v. Lasley

• Decision Date: 04 February 1935
• Docket Number: 4-3684
• Citation: 78 S.W.2d 810,190 Ark. 251
• Parties: GRAVES BROS., INC., v. LASLEY
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

78 S.W.2d 810

190 Ark. 251

GRAVES BROS., INC., v. LASLEY

4-3684

Supreme Court of Arkansas

February 4, 1935

Appeal from Chicot Chancery Court; E. G. Hammock, Chancellor reversed.

Cause reversed and remanded.

W. W Grubbs, for appellant.

Brewer & Cracraft, for appellees.

OPINION

JOHNSON, C. J.

Appellant Graves Bros., Inc., a foreign corporation domiciled at Memphis, Tennessee, instituted this suit in the Chicot Chancery Court against appellees, alleging, in effect: That for the year 1932 appellee, J. I. Lasley, rented or leased from appellant Usonia Plantation in Chicot County, and agreed to pay as rental therefor for said year the sum of $ 1,200, upon which there is a balance due of $ 706.01. That for the year 1933 appellee rented from appellant the same plantation, and agreed to pay as rental therefor fifteen bales of cotton of the average weight of 500 pounds per bale; that, when the cotton should have been delivered in the fall of 1933 the market value thereof was eleven and one-half cents per pound or the aggregate sum of $ 862.50; that no part of said cotton or the proceeds thereof was ever delivered to or paid appellant; that during the year 1933 appellee, Lasley, entered into a contract with the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture of the United States by the terms of which Lasley was required to and did plow up and destroy certain growing cotton upon appellant's plantation, and upon which a landlord's lien existed in favor of appellant; that, in consideration of such destruction of cotton, the Secretary of Agriculture agreed to and did allow appellee Lasley cotton options on 33 bales of lint cotton, and in performance of said contract and agreement said Secretary of Agriculture has transmitted a check to J. P. Hampton and W. S. Houston, agents of the Secretary of Agriculture, payable to Lasley for the sum of $ 576; that said check is now in the hands of said local agents of the Secretary of Agriculture together with certain other and additional cotton options. The prayer was for judgment against Lasley for the rentals due, and that the check and options be impounded, assigned and subjected to the payment of appellant's landlord's lien.

Appellee Lasley filed a demurrer to the complaint thus filed as follows: First, that the court has no jurisdiction; and, second, that the facts alleged do not constitute a cause of action. The demurrer was sustained by the chancellor, and the complaint dismissed, and this appeal follows.

The court erred in sustaining appellee's demurrer to appellant's complaint, and because of this the case must be reversed and remanded.

Primarily, equity has jurisdiction to enforce a landlord's lien upon the proceeds of crops grown upon leased premises which are in the hands of third parties. We have so expressly decided in a number of cases, among which are Judge v. Curtis, 72 Ark. 132, 78 S.W. 746; Murphy v. Myar, 95 Ark. 32, 128 S.W. 359; Walker v. Rose, 153 Ark. 599, 241 S.W. 19.

In Judge v. Curtis, supra, we stated the applicable rule, reading from the second headnote, as follows: "While the remedy of the absolute owner of property converted by another is at law, a mere lienor's remedy in such case is in equity to fix a lien on the proceeds in the wrongdoer's hands."

Neither can the chancellor's order sustaining the demurrer to the complaint be sustained upon the theory that the acts of the Secretary of Agriculture and the tenant, Lasley, or the acts of these parties singly, had the effect of destroying or displacing the landlord's lien upon the proceeds of the cotton crop destroyed. Appellant's landlord's lien upon this cotton crop came into being when the cotton came into existence, and no act or acts of third parties can impair, destroy or displace such lien. Sevier v. Shaw, 25 Ark. 417; Adams v. Hobbs, 27 Ark. 1; Murphy v. Myar, supra.

Under any view, appellant's complaint stated a cause of action against appellee Lasley enforceable in a court of equity, and the trial court was in error in deciding otherwise.

Appellee Lasley urges, as sustaining the chancellor's dismissal of the complaint, that the agents of the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States can not be sued in any of the courts of this State. This question is ancillary to the main suit, but it seems of such importance that we proceed to a decision of it.

Early in this court's history, we announced the doctrine that counties, being subdivisions of the State, could not be garnished at law as such. See Boone County v. Keck, 31 Ark. 387, wherein the rule was stated as follows: "Public policy, indeed, public necessity, requires that the means of public corporations, which are created for public purposes, with powers to be exercised for the public good, which can contract alone for the public, and whose only means of payment of the debts contracted is drawn from the corporators by a special levy for that purpose, should not be diverted from the purposes for which it was collected, to satisfy the demands of others than the parties contracted with."

It will be noted that the rule thus stated and promulgated was put upon the ground of sound public policy, and, without citing additional cases on the subject, it may be said that we have consistently followed, and applied the rule in all subsequent cases which fall within its sphere.

In the subsequent case of Riggin v. Hilliard, 56 Ark. 476, 20 S.W. 402, 35 Am. St. Rep. 113, we had for consideration a creditor's bill in equity, the purpose of which was to compel the assignment of the debt by the creditor of a county in satisfaction of the demand, and we there stated the facts and law as follows: "The complaint alleges that the debt is due upon a contract to repair a courthouse. The courts commonly concur in holding that public policy forbids any interference between the county and its contractor under such circumstances if the work is still in progress, for the interference would tend to retard the occupancy of the building. But here the complaint alleges that the work has been completed. There is no longer any public interest to be subserved by withholding payment from the contractor, and no reason for withholding the debt from the reach of the remedy in this sort of proceeding. Judge Dillon goes further, and expresses the opinion that in such a case the ordinary process of garnishment should be allowed against a municipal corporation. 1 Dillon's Mun. Corp., § 101; City of Laredo v. Nalle, 65 Tex. 359. But the case of Boone County v. Keck, 31 Ark. sup., is opposed to the view that the legal process of garnishment can be used against a county in any case. For the same reason, it was held...