Grisham v. Lutric & Chandler

• Decision Date: 28 November 1898
• Citation: 24 So. 169,76 Miss. 444
• Parties: THOMAS L. GRISHAM v. LUTRIC & CHANDLER
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

24 So. 169

76 Miss. 444

THOMAS L. GRISHAM v. LUTRIC & CHANDLER

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 28, 1898

November 1898

FROM the circuit court of Madison county, HON. ROBERT POWELL Judge.

Thomas L. Grisham, the appellant, was the plaintiff in the court below; Lutric & Chandler, appellees, were defendants there. The purpose of the suit was to recover the value of some cotton upon which plaintiff, as trustee, held a deed of trust, the cotton having been acquired by defendants appellees. The facts were these: In October, 1896, one Harbour leased some land in Madison county, verbally, for a term of three years. The statute of frauds (code of 1892 § 4225), provides that "an action shall not be brought whereby to charge a defendant or other party (c) Upon any contract for the sale of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or the making of any lease thereof for a longer term than one year." Before taking actual possession of the premises Harbour gave, November 17, 1896, a deed of trust on the crops to be grown on the leased premises during the year 1897, to appellant, as trustee, to secure a debt to one Buntin. In December, 1896, after Harbour had entered upon the premises, he executed a second deed of trust on the crops to be grown in 1897, on the leased land, to secure a debt to one Beauchamp. The debt to Buntin, which exceeded in amount the value of the cotton sued for, had not been paid, and suit was begun against defendants, who claimed the cotton under the second, or Beauchamp's, deed of trust.

Reversed.

H. B. Greaves and C. B. Graves, for appellant.

The effect of the verbal lease between Harbour and Kearney was to give Harbour an interest in the land leased for the year 1897, and a right to mortgage the crop to be grown thereon for the year 1897. The crops had a potential existence under the circumstances of this case which would make them a legitimate subject of sale or mortgage.

Third persons who could not have prevented Harbour and Kearney from executing the contract cannot, after it had been executed, be heard to plead the statute of frauds as affecting a contract with which they have no concern. Our court says in Chaffe v. Benoit, 60 Miss. 39: "Even though the lease was void between the parties, it cannot be attacked collaterally by third persons having no interest in the controversy."

Wells & Croom, for appellees.

The deed of trust from Harbour to appellant to secure the debt of Buntin was void, for the reason that at the time of its execution Harbour, the grantor, had no such relation to the land as would authorize and empower him to give a valid deed of trust on the crop to be grown thereon in the year 1897.

What relation did Harbour have to the land at the time of the execution of the deed of trust? He claims to have been a lessee under a verbal lease for the term of three years, no written contract or writing of any kind having been made evidencing the lease.

The lease was void, because it was verbal and was a lease of land for more than one year with no writing evidencing it. Therefore Harbour was a stranger to the land at the time he executed the deed of trust under which appellant claims. He had no interest in presenti of which the crops grown thereon in the year 1897 were the product so as to give him the power to execute a valid deed of trust on the crop. The statute of frauds condemns the lease, and § 4225 of the code of 1892 provides that no action shall be brought whereby to charge a "defendant or other person" upon any such contract.

In the case of Hill v. Gilmer, decided by this court in March, 1897 wherein the landlord sought to enforce his landlord's lien and recover his rent, the court denied the landlord's right to recover, because the lease between the landlord and his tenant was a verbal lease for more than a year, this court saying in ...