Weiland v. Krejnick

• Decision Date: 24 December 1895
• Citation: 63 Minn. 314,65 N.W. 631
• Parties: WEILAND v. KREJNICK ET AL. (TWO CASES).
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

63 Minn. 314

65 N.W. 631

WEILAND

v.KREJNICK ET AL. (TWO CASES).

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 24, 1895.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Evidence considered, and held not to justify the finding of the trial court that the delivery of grain into an elevator by the defendants, under the circumstances disclosed, constituted a sale, and not a bailment.

Appeals from district court, Scott county; Francis Cadwell, Judge.

Bill by Theodore Weiland, as assignee of Frank Nicolin, insolvent, against Jacob Krejnick and others. From an order refusing a new trial, defendants appeal. Reversed.

Southworth & Coller, for replevin appellants.

Frank Warner, for all other appellants.

Jas. McHale and Davis, Kellogg & Severance, for respondent.

MITCHELL, J.

This case, like that of Weiland v. Sunwall, 65 N. W. 628, grows out of the failure of plaintiff's assignor, Nicolin, but involves the title to the grain in another elevator, situated at New Prague; and there is no suggestion in either case that the adjustment of the rights of parties to the grain in the one elevator is at all dependent upon or connected with the adjustment of the rights of parties to the grain in the other elevator. The evidence in the two cases is also very different, and in the present case the claimants of the grain against the assignee all belong to the same class, which we will call “ticket holders”; and the evidence is the same as to all of them. In this case, as in the other case, after Nicolin's assignment, some of the ticket holders brought replevin actions, in which they took possession of the wheat in the elevator. Thereupon the assignee, as in the other case, brought an action in equity, to which he makes all the claimants defendants, for the purpose of determining the rights of all parties; and, as in the other case, the replevin suits were consolidated with the equity case, it being stipulated that the determination of it should be a final determination of all the suits.

The sole question in the case is whether the contract under which the defendants delivered their wheat into the elevator constituted a sale or a bailment. The elevator was owned and operated by Nicolin at New Prague, 12 miles distant from Jordan, where his mill was. It appears in evidence that his object in operating this elevator was to procure wheat for his mill at Jordan, and that all the wheat taken into the elevator, except a few car loads sent to Minneapolis, was shipped to the Jordan mill, and there ground up; that the elevator had been operated in this way for a number of years, and this was generally known throughout the community tributary to New Prague; that during all that time no one had ever demanded a return of the grain delivered into the elevator, but they had always presented their tickets when they saw fit, and received for their wheat the market price on the day when the tickets were presented; also, that Nicolin never charged storage, and that no contract, at least no express contract, was ever made for charging storage. So far the evidence is not dissimilar to that in the other case, but otherwise the evidence in the two cases was wholly dissimilar. The business of the...