Case ID: ga-app_27/html/0128-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hill, J.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

12163.
    CALDWELL v. ALMA GIN & MILLING CO.
    The petition set forth a cause of action for conversion of cotton by the ginner, and was sufficient as against a general oral demurrer.
    Decided June 6, 1921.
    Trover; from city court of Alma — Judge Luke. January 6, 1921.
    The petition alleged: that the defendants were engaged in the business of ginning cotton for hire and of buying and selling cotton; that the plaintiff delivered to the defendants, at their ginnery, a certain bale of cotton, which was ginned by the defendants; that after the defendants ginned the cotton they requested of the plaintiff the right to purchase it from him and requested Turn to leave it in their custody by placing it in their gin-yard, and that he did leave the cotton in their custody; that thereafter he demanded possession of the cotton, and the defendants failed and refused to deliver it to him. Its value at that time was alleged, and it was alleged that the defendants refused to deliver the cotton or to pay him its value; that they willfully converted the cotton to their own use; and that the value of the hire.of the cotton was the lawful rate of interest of 7 per cent, upon the value of the cotton, and that the plaintiff was entitled to recover the valué of thé cotton together with the interest on that amount from the date of the conversion. The prayer of the petition was judgment for the amount alleged. The defendants filed an' answer to the petition, and, when the case was reached in its regular order .for trial, counsel for the defendants orally moved to dismiss the petition, on the ground that it did not set forth a cause of action. The court ordered that the petition be dismissed unless amended by the plaintiff. The plaintiff failing to amend the petition, it was dismissed, and the plaintiff excepted.
    
      I. J. Bussell, for plaintiff, T. A. Wallace, for defendant.
   Hill, J.

(After stating the foregoing facts.) The petition is not so carefully drawn as to meet the niceties of pleadings. We are of the opinion, however, that it sufficiently set forth a cause of action to withstand a motion to dismiss. The Civil Code (1910), § 4481, declares that "The owner of personalty is entitled to the possession thereof. Any deprivation of such possession is a tort for which an action lies.” We think there are sufficient allegations in the petition to indicate the plaintiff’s ownership of the personalty involved, a conversion of the personalty by the defendants and a deprivation of the plaintiff’s right of possession, and consequent damage to the plaintiff.

Judgment reversed.

Jenkins, P. J., and Stephens, J., concur.