Reynolds v. Hardee

• Decision Date: 10 June 1915
• Docket Number: 824
• Citation: 69 So. 553,193 Ala. 454
• Parties: REYNOLDS v. HARDEE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

69 So. 553

193 Ala. 454

REYNOLDS v. HARDEE.

No. 824

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 10, 1915

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lawrence County; A.H. Alston, Judge.

Action by E.D. Reynolds against J.W. Hardee. Judgment for defendant and plaintiff appeals. Transferred from the Court of Appeals under section 6, p. 449, Acts 1911. Affirmed.

D.C Almon, of New Decatur, for appellant.

Callahan & Harris, of Decatur, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

Statutory detinue for horses, a mule, and a plantation wagon. Reynolds the plaintiff, claimed title under mortgages which included the crops to be raised by Hardee as a tenant on plaintiff's place. The mortgage debt did not include rent to be paid. For that plaintiff relied on his landlord's lien. His landlord's lien secured also, among other things, advances made for the sustenance or well-being of the tenant or his family. Code, § 4734. The question was whether the mortgage--or the mortgages, for the security was renewed from year to year, balances being carried over--had been satisfied by cash paid and cotton and other property turned over to plaintiff. If so, plaintiff's mortgage title had been divested out of him. The court in its oral charge instructed the jury,

"That the plaintiff would not have had the right to apply the proceeds of the mortgaged property to any debt, except such as was contracted to enable the mortgagor to make a crop during the year for which the mortgage was given."

To this excerpt plaintiff excepted, and this is the only exception argued in brief of counsel. We take the charge to mean that plaintiff's lien as landlord was to be measured by the agreed price or value of such articles as were furnished by plaintiff to enable defendant to make a crop, and that to such lien, so restricted, the proceeds of the crop should have been applied. This was perhaps erroneous in the abstract (Donaldson v. Wilkerson, 170 Ala. 507, 54 So. 234) but on the record we are able to see that it was a mere abstraction, and that if the jury reached its conclusion of fact on considerations afforded by the evidence alone, which is to be presumed, there is no chance that this abstraction had any influence upon the verdict. This for the reason that there was no evidence that plaintiff advanced to defendant anything but such supplies as were useful in making a crop. The court instructed the jury at plaintiff's request that plaintiff, as landlord, had a lien on the crops...