Trenholm v. Miles

• Decision Date: 25 November 1912
• Docket Number: 15,496
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: E. L. TRENHOLM, TRUSTEE, v. MARY R. MILES

59 So. 930

102 Miss. 835

E. L. TRENHOLM, TRUSTEE, v. MARY R. MILES

No. 15,496

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 25, 1912

October, 1912

APPEAL from the chancery court of Yazoo county, HON. G. G. LYELL Chancellor.

Suit by E. L. Trenholm, trustee, against Mary R. Miles.

From a decree dismissing the bill, complainant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Affirmed.

Williams & George and E. L. Brown, for appellant.

Noel Boothe & Pepper, for appellee.

No brief of counsel on either side found in the record.

Argued orally by E. F. Noell, for appellee and W. R.

Harper, for appellant.

OPINION

REED, J.

This is a suit brought by appellant, E. L. Trenholm, trustee, administering the estate of C. L. King, bankrupt, against appellee, to recover the sum of sixteen thousand, eight hundred and eighty-nine dollars and ninety cents, which he charges she accepted from the bankrupt with intent to receive a preference, and knowing that he was insolvent, and an extinguishment of an unsecured indebtedness due her by the bankrupt, contracted more than four months before his bankruptcy, which payment, so he alleges, enabled her to obtain a greater percentage of the debt due her than any other of the bankrupt's creditors of the same class. The suit was originally instituted in the circuit court, and transferred by consent to the chancery court. From a decree by the chancellor, dismissing the bill, appellant appeals.

It appears that the appellee, Mrs. Mary R. Miles, leased to C. L. King two tracts of land, one the Milestone field, for seventy-five thousand pounds of lint cotton, and the other the Good Hope field, for three thousand dollars. This lease continued during the year, 1908. C. L. King on January 1, 1908, executed a deed of trust in favor of appellee on all of his crops raised on said tracts during 1908 to secure an indebtedness evidenced by note for the sum of twelve thousand dollars, payable January 1, 1909. It is provided in this deed of trust that, if the trustee should take possession of the crops, he is authorized to gather, gin, and prepare it for market, "and thereafter sell it to the best advantage, at private or public sale, as the case may be, and all expenses of taking, gathering, ginning, bailing, and selling shall be a lien upon such corn and cotton, and be paid out of the proceeds of the sale thereof."

There is an agreed statement of facts in the case, and it is therein shown that C. L. King delivered to appellee, at her request, all the cotton raised on the leased premises during the year 1908, and that it was by her consigned and shipped to her from Milestone to New Orleans, Louisiana, and sold by her through her agent in New Orleans, and the proceeds applied to the account of rent and supplies due her by King; that after the delivery of the cotton at Milestone, King had no further control of the cotton; that Mrs. Miles directed the railroad agent as to the shipment of the cotton, and that her liens as landlord and under the deed of trust covered all the cotton raised that year, "whether delivered in 1908 or 1909, unless as a matter of law said liens were lost by shipment to New Orleans, Louisiana;" that it was verbally agreed between Mrs. Miles and King that the net proceeds of the cotton sold in New Orleans should be credited to his indebtedness, and that the proceeds of said cotton were not in excess of the amount owing to Mrs. Miles; that King had no kind of communication with the agents in New Orleans relative to the disposition of the cotton, "and that no written agreement relative to the shipment or application of payments, was made between the said King and Mrs. Miles, except the deed of trust, recorded as aforesaid which deed of trust is herewith filed and made a part of this agreement and lease contract, filed and made a part thereof." The agreed statement also contains the following: "It is further admitted that no part of said cotton was ever sold to the said Mrs. Miles by the said King, and that no agreement relative thereto and not herein stated existed between the said King and the said Mrs. Miles; but said cotton was delivered by King at Milestone, Holmes county, Miss., to the said Mrs. Miles, for the reason that she had liens as landlord under lease contract, and as cestui que trust, under the deed of trust heretofore referred to, each of which liens had been in existence prior and since January 1, 1908." C. L. King filed his petition for adjudication as a bankrupt on March 24, 1909.

There is nothing unusual about the transaction between C. L. King and appellee. It is an ordinary business affair, quite common in this state in the dealings between planters and tenants. It is contended by appellant that the understanding between appellee and C. L. King that she should sell the cotton in New Orleans and apply the proceeds thereof to the settlement of the amount due for rent and supplies amounted to a pledge, and that the pledge was substituted for the liens held by appellee as landlord and under her deed of trust, and that such pledge was not recognized under the laws of Louisiana, and that, therefore, appellee lost all liens which she had on the cotton when it crossed the state line from Mississippi into Louisiana.

What is a pledge? We find the following definition in 31 Cyc. 785 "A pledge is a transfer of personal property as a security for a debt or other obligation." And from the same volume we get the following other definitions: "A deposit of goods, redeemable on certain terms." 4 Kent's Comm. 138. "A lien created by the owner of personal property by the mere delivery of it to another, upon an express or implied understanding that it shall be retained as security for an existing or future debt." 3 Parsons, Contracts, 271. In 31 Cyc. 787, it is stated, as an element necessary to constitute a contract one of pledge, that the legal title to the pledged property must remain in the pledgor. In Jones on Pledges, p. 1, the...