Hyde v. German Nat. Bank of Oshkosh

• Decision Date: 21 May 1897
• Citation: 71 N.W. 659,96 Wis. 406
• Parties: HYDE v. GERMAN NAT. BANK OF OSHKOSH ET AL.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

96 Wis. 406

71 N.W. 659

HYDE

v.GERMAN NAT. BANK OF OSHKOSH ET AL.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

May 21, 1897.

Appeal from circuit court, Waupaca county; Charles M. Webb, Judge.

Action by Welcome Hyde against the German National Bank of Oshkosh and others. There was an order of reference for an accounting, after trial by the court, and defendant the German National Bank appeals. Dismissed.

This action was brought by the plaintiff to compel the defendant the German National Bank of Oshkosh to account for the proceeds of certain lumber and timber cut from lands claimed to belong to the plaintiff, which the defendant bank claimed to hold as security for certain loans made to the plaintiff and to the defendant the Paulding Lumber Company. The plaintiff bought certain standing timber in Michigan, and in order to pay the purchase price he borrowed certain moneys of the German National Bank and J. H. Jenkins, and pledged his contract for the timber as security for payment. He made a contract with the defendant the Paulding Lumber Company, by which he sold a portion of the timber thus bought by him to that company, and the latter pledged its contract to the bank as security for advances. The plaintiff, and also the Paulding Lumber Company, carried on logging operations on said lands, and he claimed to have made advances to the Paulding Lumber Company to enable it to carry on such operations, and the said lumber company claimed to have made advances to the plaintiff to enable him to carry on his logging operations. The German National Bank claimed to have advanced moneys to purchase supplies, and carry on the logging operations, both by the plaintiff, Welcome Hyde, and by the defendant the Paulding Lumber Company. The proceeds from the sales of the timber and lumber cut on the lands had been deposited in the said bank, and it claimed a lien on all these proceeds for the payment of all its advances, both to the plaintiff and to the Paulding Lumber Company, while the plaintiff claimed that only the loans of the bank to him should be satisfied out of the proceeds of his timber, and that he had the first lien and claim on the remainder of the moneys held by the bank by virtue of his contract with the Paulding Lumber Company, and for advances made by him to that company. The defendant the German National Bank claimed that both the plaintiff and the Paulding Lumber Company had agreed that they would carry on logging operations on all the lands as a joint enterprise, and that all the advances by the bank to both the plaintiff and to the Paulding Lumber Company should first be paid out of the proceeds of the logging operations, and that all the plaintiff's, as well as the Paulding Lumber Company's, interests in the lands, and the timber thereon, and logs, lumber cut therefrom, etc., were pledged and hypothecated to the bank and said Jenkins as security for the advances and loans made by them to both the plaintiff and the Paulding Lumber Company, and that the bank and Jenkins had a first lien on the proceeds for the satisfaction of their respective claims. The parties had stipulated that “there be first tried and adjudged by the circuit court the question on what basis the accounting shall be had, and particularly that there be first tried and adjudged the question whether the property of the plaintiff, Welcome Hyde, was pledged to the defendant the German National Bank or to J. H. Jenkins, or both of them, as security for the debts of the Paulding Lumber Company, and that either party should have a right to appeal from the determination of the circuit court as to the basis on which the accounting should be had, and that neither party be compelled to proceed to an accounting in court until determination by the supreme court as to such basis, and particularly as to whether the property of the plaintiff was pledged to the German National Bank or to J. H. Jenkins, or both of them, as security for the debts of the Paulding Lumber Company...