Lamble v. Schreiber

• Decision Date: 27 July 1945
• Docket Number: 46712.
• Parties: LAMBLE v. SCHREIBER et al.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

19 N.W.2d 669

236 Iowa 597

LAMBLE v. SCHREIBER et al.

No. 46712.

Supreme Court of Iowa

July 27, 1945

O. J. Henderson, of Webster City, and Herrick Sloan & Langdon, of Des Moines, for appellants.

Burnstedt Hemingway & Hemingway, of Webster City, for appellee.

MANTZ Justice.

Plaintiff Joe Lamble, sued defendants, C. C. Schreiber and Robert Walker, claiming that by various acts they removed from his farm in Hamilton County, Iowa, two portable hog houses and converted them to their own use, all without the knowledge or consent of plaintiff. He sued for their value. Defendants denied the claim of plaintiff but alleged that the hog houses were not the property of plaintiff but were the property of defendant, Walker, who, in 1942, was a tenant of Schreiber. Defendant, Walker, filed a counter claim against plaintiff but that is not involved in this appeal. The jury was waived, the cause tried to the court, and judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiff; both defendants have appealed.

I. A brief statement of some of the relevant facts may be helpful in getting a correct understanding of the matters involved in the case. Dr. Schreiber, a dentist of about 25 years experience, lived in Des Moines. He owned a 200 acre farm in Hamilton County, Iowa. Prior to September, 1942, he had leased the farm for a term of five years to appellant, Walker. Appellee, Lamble, aged 57, was born in Alsace Loraine, France, and came to America in 1915. He never went to school here but coudl read and write. For some years the 200 acre farm had been operated from another farm. Its improvements were poor. Some of these were torn down. Sometime in the spring of 1942, Schreiber employed a carpenter to build two portable hog houses on the premises for the use of Walker's hogs. The materials, old and new, were furnished or paid for by Schreiber, who likewise paid the carpenter and his helpers. At that time there were no hog houses on the farm and no facilities for the raising or handling of hogs. Later in the summer of 1942, Schreiber solicited appellee to buy the farm as he stood in need of cash to protect his wife's interest in some land being partitioned in Kossuth County. Sometime in September, appellee purchased the farm, the deal being made by Schreiber personally, no agent being involved. Later in the year the tenant, Walker, advised appellee that Schreiber was trying to sell him the two hog houses. Appellee advised Walker, also Schreiber, that the hog houses had been purchased by him when he bought the farm and he told both of them not to remove them from the place. Schreiber on February 26, 1943, through his attorneys, wrote appellee that: 'Dr. C. C. Schreiber * * * has transferred the title and possession of the following described personal property located on the said land to Robert Walker, said property being described as follows: (1) two portable hog houses.' Walker continued on the farm as tenant of appellee for the year beginning March 1, 1943, and when he removed therefrom a year later took with him the two hog houses and placed them on another farm which Dr. Schreiber had purchased and later leased to Walker.

II. Various issues are raised in this appeal. As we view the situation the controlling issues are: (1) Whether these two hog houses belonged to the farm when Schreiber sold it in September, 1942 to appellee; (2) also whether or not they had been sold by Schreiber to Walker before Walker's tenancy to Schreiber terminated on March 1, 1943; (3) also the issue argued as to the value of the hog houses at the time they were removed from appellee's farm.

The appellants join in argument in this court. They have argued here that the court erred in holding that in transferring the hog houses from Schreiber there was a joint conversion. We do not think that this issue was raised in the lower court; consequently, we cannot consider it here. We think it unnecessary to cite authority on this proposition.

III. As propositions 1 and 2 set out above are closely related, we will consider them together. These two matters are fact questions. As the case was at law and was submitted to the court without a jury, the finding of the trial court has the same force and effect as a verdict of the jury.

Appellants argue that under the undisputed facts there was no question of fact to be decided by the court and that tribunal erred in refusing to direct a verdict. Appellants' argument in substance is that the hog houses belonged to Walker when Schreiber sold the farm to appellee in September, 1942; that Schreiber had given them to Walker in payment for Walker's labor in demolishing some old buildings on the farm; that such structures were not fixtures and could be removed as the property of Walker.

We have carefully examined the record and find ourselves unable to agree with either of these contentions. We hold that there was a sufficient conflict of evidence in the record to generate a fact question and that there was sufficient evidence therein to sustain the finding of the court. We will later set out some of the record which we think supports the view of the trial court that the two hog houses were fixtures; also that they were the property of Dr. Schreiber when he sold the farm to appellee in September, 1942.

Our court has on many occasions had before it the question as to what was or was not a fixture. Our decisions hold that its determination is a fact question. Cornell College v. Crain, 211 Iowa 1343, 235 N.W. 731; Equitable Life Assurance Soc. v. Chapman, 225 Iowa 988, 282 N.W. 355; Walker v. Puck, Iowa, 8 N.W.2d 701.

One of our latest pronouncements upon that subject will be found in the case of Walker v. Puck, supra. That was a controversy as to whether certain farm property, such as farm pumps, window frames, steel posts and barbed wire, were fixtures. This court (Hale, J.) held that the general test to be applied in determining what are fixtures is annexation to realty, either actual or constuctive, the application or adaptation to the use or purpose to which that part of the realty to which such articles were connected is appropriated, and the intention to make such articles a part of the real estate. The cited case further holds that each case wherein the question of...