Keith Bros. v. Heffelfinger

• Decision Date: 04 April 1882
• Citation: 11 N.W. 749,12 Neb. 497
• Parties: KEITH BROTHERS v. HEFFELFINGER.
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

12 Neb. 497

11 N.W. 749

KEITH BROTHERS

v.HEFFELFINGER.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

Filed April 4, 1882.

Error to the district court for Adams county. Trial below before Gaslin, J.Batty & Ragan, for plaintiffs.

R. H. Mills and James Laird, for defendant.

MAXWELL, J.

It appears from the record that on the thirteenth day of January, 1881, one A. C. Wier, traveling agent for the North Star Boot & Shoe Manufacturing Company, of Minneapolis, purchased the goods in question from A. Andrus, of Hastings, for his principal, for the sum of $3,100. Of this sum about $2,600 or $2,700 was a debt due the boot and shoe company, about $300 a debt owing by Andrus at a bank, and an account due one McKnight. Andrus at this time was owing about $2,000, besides the above-named debts, of which Wier at the time of the purchase had notice. Wier took possession of the goods in the name of his principal on the fourteenth of January, 1881. On the seventeenth of that month Keith Brothers commenced an action by attachment against Andrus, and caused the goods in controversy to be attached. On the same day the defendant herein commenced an action in replevin, and took the goods from the possession of the sheriff. The plaintiffs were substituted in the action for the sheriff. The boot and shoe company seems to consist of the defendant.

On the trial of the cause in the court below judgment was rendered in favor of the defendant herein. The plaintiffs bring the cause into this court by petition in error. The errors assigned are, in substance, that the verdict is against the weight of evidence, and that the coroner had no authority to serve the writ of replevin. As to the first objection it is sufficient to say that the testimony shows conclusively that Wier purchased the goods for the defendant and paid their full value. Fraud as to the other creditors is pleaded in the answer, but there is no proof whatever to sustain it; nor is there any proof, except by inference, to show that the plaintiffs were creditors of Andrus, nor what amount was claimed under the attachment. The testimony clearly establishes the right of the defendant in error as against the plaintiffs to the goods in question, and there is no error in that regard. Section 3, c. 8, Rev. St. 1866, which was in force when this action was commenced, provided that “every coroner shall serve and execute process of every kind, and perform all other duties of the sheriff, when the sheriff shall be a party to the...