Sample v. Verner-Kelly Live Stock Commission Co.
| Decision Date | 12 June 1916 |
| Citation | 186 S.W. 1125,193 Mo.App. 670 |
| Parties | JAMES S. SAMPLE, Appellant, v. VERNER-KELLY LIVE STOCK COMMISSION COMPANY, Respondent |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court.--Hon. Frank C. Johnson, Judge.
REVERSED AND REMANDED (with directions).
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
Stubenrauch & Hartz for appellant.
J. W Farrar and J. R. Kaspar for respondent.
--This is an action in replevin. Plaintiff was the owner of a pasture in Greenwood county, Kansas, and on August 21, 1913 one Wiershing, being the owner and in possession of eighty head of cattle, put them into plaintiff's possession to be kept on said pasture for the rest of the grazing season for the sum of $ 240 the owner agreeing not to take the cattle away without first paying the pasturage.
At the time this was done the defendant held two chattel mortgages on the cattle which were on record in Greenwood county.
On Sunday, September 28, 1913, Wiershing, without plaintiff's knowledge or consent, moved said cattle from the pasture and shipped them to the defendant at Kansas City, Missouri, where they arrived on the morning of September 29, 1913, and were there taken possession of by defendant.
As soon as plaintiff discovered the cattle had been shipped, he demanded of Wiershing and the defendant payment of his bill for pasturing the cattle, claiming an agister's lien thereon. They both refused to pay. Whereupon plaintiff demanded of defendant the possession of a sufficient number of said cattle, to-wit, five or six head, to protect and satisfy his aforesaid lien. Defendant refused. Thereupon, on the same day, to-wit, September 29, 1913, plaintiff brought this replevin suit before a justice of the peace in Kaw Township Jackson county, Missouri, wherein Kansas City, is located, where the defendant has its place of business, and where the cattle then were. The purpose of the suit was to get possession of five head of said cattle, so that plaintiff might thereafter proceed to enforce his agister's lien for pasturing said cattle.
Plaintiff prevailed before the justice and defendant appealed to the circuit court where the case was, by agreement, tried before the court without a jury.
The trial court made a finding of facts in accordance with those hereinbefore stated, and, in addition to these, further found that plaintiff's bill was reasonable; that the actual value of the five head replevied was $ 388.20; that defendant sold the remainder of said cattle and applied the proceeds toward the satisfaction of its chattel mortgages, but that there yet remains due on one the sum of $ 77.96 and on the other $ 312.43 with interest, (which, of course, is more than the value of the cattle replevied).
The court further found that "at the time when plaintiff and said Roy Wiershing made their contract, and at all time involved in this suit, it was the law of the State of Kansas, as follows, to-wit:
"The keepers of livery stables, and all others engaged in feeding horses, cattle, hogs or other stock, shall have a lien upon such property for the feed and care bestowed by them upon the same, and if reasonable or stipulated charges for such feed and care be not paid within sixty days after the same becomes due, the property or so much thereof as may be necessary to pay such charges and the expenses of publication and sale, may be sold as provided in this Act."
The court further found that "at all said times it was the law of the State of Kansas as laid down by the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas that the lien of the agister, under said statute, was prior in right to that of mortgagee under a chattel mortgage, although the chattel mortgage might have been executed and recorded before the agistment began, and further that under the statute aforesaid the agister had the right to retain possession of the property put in his care until his charges were paid."
The court further found the value of plaintiff's interest in the property and also assessed his damages for the detention at the sum of $ 25; that plaintiff's lien for the feed and care of said cattle was superior to the chattel mortgages of defendant; and that he was entitled to the possession of the five head of cattle described in the writ. Accordingly the court rendered judgment in plaintiff's favor for possession of the cattle and for $ 25, assessed as damages for the detention thereof.
Afterwards, at the same term, the court, on its own motion, set aside the judgment "for the reason that the justice of the peace before whom the cause originated had no jurisdiction of the cause of action or the subject-matter," and, dismissing plaintiff's petition, rendered judgment for defendant.
After plaintiff's motion to set aside the dismissal and to grant a new trial had been overruled, the plaintiff duly appealed.
It thus appears that the sole ground upon which the judgment in plaintiff's favor was set aside is that the justice of the peace had no jurisdiction.
The cattle involved in this litigation were in Kansas; the parties to the agistment of the cattle were there, and so were the defendant's chattel mortgages. The rights of the parties were, therefore, fixed by the laws of that State. The questions whether plaintiff had an agister's lien, and whether such lien is superior or inferior to defendant's prior chattel mortgages, are both governed wholly by Kansas law and not by Missouri law.
Defendant says that, inasmuch as the Missouri law makes a prior mortgage superior to an agister's lien, plaintiff's right to possession of the cattle can only be upheld by virtue of Kansas law, which, unlike Missouri, makes the agister's lien superior to a prior mortgage, and, therefore, plaintiff, in order to sustain his cause, must necessarily invoke the Kansas law. All of which is, doubtless, very true; and plaintiff does not deny this fact. But defendant contends that a Missouri justice of the peace has no power or authority to try any case wherein plaintiff's cause of action rests, in any degree, upon the laws of a foreign State, or where, in order to sustain a case, it is necessary for the justice to interpret foreign statutes. Defendant urges this as one of its grounds for the claim that the justice, before whom the case originated, had no jurisdiction.
The point raised is certainly novel, and we know of no authority holding to that effect. It is undoubtedly true that the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace is statutory and strictly limited by the statutes of this State. But we know of no statute denying to a justice of the peace the right to try a case whenever the decision thereof may necessarily involve the interpretation of a foreign law or statute. Indeed, section 1736, Revised Statutes 1909, provides that whenever a cause of action has accrued under or by virtue of the laws of any other State or territory such...
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