Lyda v. Cooper

• Citation: 169 S.E. 236,169 S.C. 451
• Decision Date: 01 May 1933
• Docket Number: 13629.
• Parties: LYDA v. COOPER et al. (two cases).
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

169 S.E. 236

169 S.C. 451

LYDA v. COOPER et al. (two cases).

No. 13629.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

May 1, 1933

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Spartanburg County; W. H Grimball, Judge.

Actions by Della H. Lyda and by Clarence Lyda against C. I. Cooper doing business as the Cooper Furniture Company, and another. Judgment was entered for defendants on directed verdict, and plaintiffs appeal.

Reversed and remanded.

W. M Swink, of Woodruff, and Lyles & Daniel, of Spartanburg, for appellants.

Osborne & Butler, of Spartanburg, for respondent.

BONHAM Justice.

These cases were heard together on circuit, and it is agreed that the decision of the appeal in the case of Della Lyda shall be decisive of that in the case of Clarence Lyda.

The respondent C. I. Cooper is the owner of a furniture store at Woodruff, S. C., which is conducted under the name of Cooper Furniture Company, by which title we will designate it. J. H. Hinton was manager of the business. From it furniture, household goods and utensils, and the like articles were sold on the installment plan; that is to say, a payment of cash at the time of purchase, and installments of weekly payments of an agreed sum. The contract was in writing. By its terms the goods were rented to the purchaser with the option to purchase them when paid for in full. Upon the failure to pay any of the installments, the seller was given the right "to repossess said articles without hindrance or process of law." The instrument is of the nature of a title-retaining contract, which, in this state, is held to be a chattel mortgage.

Della and Clarence Lyda are husband and wife; each of them bought goods of Cooper Furniture Company and each of them signed one of these contracts. They were employed in a cotton mill at Woodruff.

We will deal with the case of Della Lyda.

It is not denied that she was in arrears with her payments. There is a contradiction in the evidence as to the time of the last payments. While she and her husband were absent from home, and their house locked, or fastened, the respondent Hinton and his assistant, Baldwin, came to repossess the goods. Finding the house closed, Hinton inquired of Mrs. Hall, the mother of Mrs. Lyda, and who lived across the street, for the key to the Lyda house and was informed that she did not have it. He testified that Mrs. Hall advised him to open the window and go through that. It was not shown that Mrs. Hall had any authority to give permission to effect entrance in this way; she was dead when the case was tried. Be that as it may, Hinton went through the window, opened the doors, and he and his assistant carried away the articles covered by the contract. In the drawers of the chifferobe were articles of Mrs. Lyda's wearing apparel and the clothes prepared for the child to which she looked forward to give birth within a short time. These were taken out and left in a trunk. When the Lydas returned home they found it denuded of everything save this trunk and a spring mattress, and had to go to her mother's home.

She brought this action for damages, actual and punitive, for the alleged willful, wanton, reckless, and high-handed entrance of her home in her absence, for trespass and the invasion of her property rights. The defendants answered, setting up the breach of the contract and their right under its terms to repossess themselves of the goods they had sold her.

The cases were heard by Judge Grimball and a jury at the April, 1932, term of the court of common pleas for Spartanburg county. At the conclusion of all the testimony, the presiding judge directed a verdict for the defendant. He embodied his reasons therefor in an order in which he declared that his action was controlled by the case of Willis v. Whittle, 82 S.C. 500, 64 S.E. 410; that in that case it appeared that in a chattel mortgage covering a horse, the condition of the mortgage was broken; that when the agent went to the home of the mortgagor to take the horse, the mortgagor and his sons were absent, his wife said her husband had instructed her to object to the taking of the horse, and accordingly she did so; nevertheless, the mortgagee went to the stable, took the horse, and carried him away; that there was no breach of the peace; that the mortgagee had the right to enter upon the premises to seize the property; that he did it in an orderly manner and hence was not a trespasser; that it cannot be said (in the present case) that there was a breach of the peace. "The entry upon the premises of the plaintiffs, in order to make the seizure, was a peaceful entry, without a breach of the peace." (Italics added.)

Again, from the order: "If either of the plaintiffs had been at the house at the time the mortgagee arrived to take possession of the furniture, and if either of the plaintiffs had protested against the entrance, and if the mortgagee had made an entrance over such protest a different state of facts would have been presented to the Court in such case."

Should it not have been left to the jury to determine whether a verbal protest against entrance upon one's premises is more potent than locked doors--doors which have been locked to protect the contents of the house in the absence of the owners?

The order appealed...