Hoven v. McCarthy Bros. Co., 24435.
| Decision Date | 29 May 1925 |
| Docket Number | No. 24435.,24435. |
| Citation | 204 N.W. 29,163 Minn. 339 |
| Parties | HOVEN v. McCARTHY BROS. CO. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Hennepin County; Mathias Baldwin, Judge.
Action by Joe Hoven against the McCarthy Bros. Company. After finding in favor of defendant, plaintiff appeals from order denying alternative motion for judgment or new trial. Reversed and remanded, with instructions.
Edward P. Kelly, of Minneapolis, Scott Cameron, of Bismarck, N. D., and A. B. Atkin, of Napoleon, N. D., for appellant.
Fowler, Carlson, Furber & Johnson, of Minneapolis, for respondent.
This is an action for conversion demanding judgment for $17,706.94. The answer denies the conversion and pleads other matters as a defense. The case was tried to the court, and the only question considered was liability, leaving other questions and the question of amount for future consideration. The court found no liability on the part of the respondent. Appellant has appealed from an order denying his alternative motion for judgment or for a new trial.
Plaintiff holds warehouse receipts or storage tickets, issued to 48 farmers in form as prescribed by the laws of North Dakota regulating warehouses, for grain delivered to an elevator operated by one Burnstad of Burnstad, N. D. Burnstad shipped the grain in his own name to respondent, a commission firm in Minneapolis. It received the same, sold it on the open market, deducted its commission for such sales, and accounted to Burnstad for the proceeds. Later appellant demanded the grain or an equivalent amount of grain, and tendered proper fees and charges for handling and storage. The demand was futile. Burnstad failed. The grain on hand was sold and proceeds turned over to a trustee for the benefit of holders of storage tickets.
The farmers to whom storage tickets were issued knew that grain was being shipped from the two local elevators which had together a capacity of about one-fourth of the grain produced in their territory. It is claimed that because of such knowledge the silence on their part estopped them from asserting that the disposition of the grain in question was wrongful under the doctrine of Nieter v. McCaull-Dinsmore Co. (Minn.) 199 N. W. 85. The facts, however, in this case are wholly insufficient to warrant the inference of consent to such disposition of the grain, and will not support the claim of estoppel.
We are here concerned with the statute of North Dakota (sections 3111-3115, Comp. Laws of 1913) and the decisions of the court in that state. It is now the declared law in North Dakota upon the construction of the statute that the holders of storage tickets are owners in common of the grain in the elevator up to the amount required to redeem the storage tickets; that the elevator man may mix the grain with other grain, and the tickets provide for the return of substituted grain of like kind and quality, etc., and at terminals; that the transaction is a bailment; and that there is no limitation upon the bailee's right to sell from the common mass; that when the grain is shipped out the grain substituted for it in the common mass passes to the holders of the storage tickets to the extent required to redeem all such outstanding tickets; that the holders of such tickets remain the owners until their title is lawfully divested.
"The right of the warehouseman to sell as his own being necessarily limited to the quantity over that which is required to redeem outstanding receipts, it follows that, where stored grain is shipped out and sold to the point where the warehouseman cannot redeem the outstanding receipts, property is sold which the vendor does not own." Kastner v. Andrews (N. D.) 194 N. W. 824; Carson State Bank v. Grant Grain Co. (N. D.) 197 N. W. 146.
This is in harmony with our own statute. Torgerson v. Quinn-Shepherdson Co. (Minn.) 201 N. W. 615. Hence the person who buys grain from a North Dakota warehouseman must determine for himself that such warehouseman has on hand sufficient grain to meet the outstanding storage tickets, otherwise he buys at his peril. To the extent that the grain purchased is needed to meet deficiency on storage tickets, no title can be acquired, and it is the subject of conversion.
It is the law that a decision of a court of supreme jurisdiction overruling a former decision is retrospective in its operation— the overruled decision is regarded in law as never having been the law, but the law as given in the later case is regarded as having been the law, even at the date of the erroneous decision, except that, where a Constitution or statute has received a given construction by the court of last resort, and contracts have been made and rights acquired in accordance therewith, such contracts may not be invalidated nor vested rights acquired under them impaired by a change of construction made by a subsequent decision. Louisiana v. Pilsbury, 105 U. S. 278, 26 L. Ed. 1090; Farrior v. New Eng. Mtg. Sec. Co., 88 Ala. 275, 7 So. 200, 12 L. R. A. 856; Haskett v. Maxey, 134 Ind. 182, 33 N. E. 358, 19 L. R. A. 379; Mason v. Nelson, 148 N. C. 492, 62 S. E. 625, 18 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1221, 128 Am. St. Rep. 635; Falconer v. Simmons, 51 W. Va. 177, 41 S. E. 193; U. S. Saving Fund & Investment Co. v. Harris, 142 Ind. 243, 40 N. E. 1072, 41 N. E. 451; State v. O'Neil, 147 Iowa, 527, 126 N. W. 454, 33 L. R. A. (N. S.) 796, Ann. Cas. 1912B, 691; Douglass v. Pike County, 101 U. S. 677, 25 L. Ed. 968; Sutherland on Statutory Construction, par. 319; Ohio...
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