Wilkins-Ricks Co. v. Welch
| Decision Date | 03 March 1920 |
| Docket Number | 113. |
| Citation | 102 S.E. 316,179 N.C. 266 |
| Parties | WILKINS-RICKS CO. v. WELCH. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Lee County; Connor, Judge.
Action by the Wilkins-Ricks Company against B. N. Welch. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. New trial ordered.
A transaction entered into by one in reference to the property of another, although without authority, must be ratified or repudiated as a whole, and a benefit cannot be accepted under it without being subject to its burdens.
This is an action to recover two mules, which the plaintiff claims under a chattel mortgage executed by A. C. Stout to Wilkins-Lashley Company, and which, with the notes secured therein, were transferred to the plaintiff after maturity.
The chattel mortgage included the two mules and other personal property.
Before the notes and mortgage were transferred to the plaintiff Stout traded the mules to the defendant and received in exchange two mules and a check for $210, agreeing at the time to secure the release of the mules from the Lashley mortgage.
Stout saw L. P. Wilkins, who was secretary and treasurer of Wilkins-Lashley Company and of the Wilkins-Ricks Company told him of the trade with the defendant, and delivered to him the check for $210, which he accepted for the company and which the company indorsed and received the money thereon.
L. P. Wilkins testified:
"That he was the secretary-treasurer of the Wilkins-Ricks Company; that H. C. Stout came to see him some time during the early part of 1915 and gave him a check for $210, for which he credited him on his notes and mortgages; that Stout told him that he had traded mules and wanted him to change the papers; that he asked Mr. Palmer, president of the plaintiff company, to look at the mules, and Mr. Palmer reported that they were poor security, so he told Stout that he would not make the change; that he saw Stout several times afterwards and had a good deal of correspondence with him about paying the mortgage; that he never agreed to release his original security; that Welch came in to see him several times, but always assured him that Stout was an honest man and would pay his debts, until finally Welch told him that the plaintiff had lost its rights in the case against him altogether by accepting his check; that he knew that the check for $210 was boot money which Stout had received in a trade of the mules described in his mortgage."
His honor held that there was no ratification of the sale to the defendant, and instructed the jury to answer the issue as to the ownership of the property in favor of the plaintiff, if they believed the evidence, and the defendant excepted.
There was a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and the defendant appealed.
Siler & Barber, of Pittsboro, and Hoyle & Hoyle, of Sanford, for appellant.
Seawell & Milliken, of Sanford, for appellee.
The plaintiff corporation and the Wilkins-Lashley Company are apparently one corporation; but, however this may be, notice to the officers of one would be notice to the other, as the officers of both are the same, and in any event the plaintiff, having taken the notes and mortgage after maturity, holds them subject to any defenses existing against the Wilkins-Lashley Company.
The real question then is: Could the Wilkins-Lashley Company maintain this action to recover the two...
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Keith v. Glenn, 673
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