Case Title: Julian Engineering Co. v. RJ & CW FLETCHER, INC.

Citation: 253 S.W.2d 743

Docket Number: 

State: tennessee

Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Date: 1952-12-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
253 S.W.2d 743 (1952) JULIAN ENGINEERING CO. v. R. J. & C. W. FLETCHER, Inc. et al. Supreme Court of Tennessee. December 5, 1952. *744 Dannel & Fowler, of Loudon, Green, Webb & McCampbell, Knoxville, Lowitz & Lowitz, Chicago, Ill., for complainant. M.G. Goodwin, Lenoir City, for defendants. GAILOR, Justice. This litigation rises from a conditional sales contract by which Julian Engineering Company, an Illinois corporation, sold to the defendants a prefabricated smoke-house for $6,000. $2,000 was paid in cash when the goods were delivered and the balance of $4,000 was represented by a promissory note payable in monthly installments of $167 each. The cash payment of $2,000 was made as agreed, but the balance was unpaid at the time of the filing of the bill. By the bill the complainant does not seek any money judgment, but carefully limits its prayer for relief to an adjudication of its right to possession of the subject matter of the contract of conditional sale. The action is not in replevin but in detinue. The complainant did not seek possession contemporaneously with the filing of the bill, but sought an adjudication of the merits of its right to possession under the conditional sales contract and its default, and a decree awarding possession after its right to possession had been determinated. After the names and status of the defendants had been corrected by plea in abatement, the defendants filed answers. After certain affirmative defenses, which we consider hereafter, had been stricken by the Chancellor from these answers on motion, a final hearing was had on bill and answer, the Chancellor decreed the complainant's right to possession, and awarded it a writ to make the decree effective. The affirmative defenses sought to be raised by the defendants are the basis for the assignments of error made to support the appeal. They are (1) that the Chancellor erred in refusing to permit the defendants to plead and prove matters in recoupment or set-off on account of complainant's breach of warranties in connection with the fitness and suitability of the smoke-house and its accessories. (2) That the Chancellor erred in decreeing repossession of the smoke-house and accessories as personal property, since it was within the contemplation of the parties at the time of the contract of sale, that the smoke-house should be attached to the realty and so lose its character as personal property, and its liability to be repossessed as such. (3) That the Chancellor erred in allowing the L.C. Spiehs Company, Inc., a foreign corporation, to intervene in the cause and become a party complainant as an assignee of the Julian Engineering Company, the original complainant. The Chancellor gave studious and careful consideration to the points of the litigation as they arose, and in the course of the proceedings in the Chancery Court, wrote three opinions which have come up with the record and are of material assistance to us in a determination of the rights involved. As to the right of recoupment or set-off, under Tennessee law, we think the Chancellor was clearly correct in holding that in an action which sought possession of personal property only, no counterclaim could be made for damages. The complainant sought possession of the smoke-house, and the defendants sought to offset this right to possession by a claim for a sum of money. It will be observed that the rule made in Blair v. Johnson & Sons, supra, is not limited to replevin actions technically, but to any "possessory action", 111 Tenn. at page 117, 76 S.W. 912, so in a later case in which Blair v. Johnson & Sons was affirmed and approved, though the action was in replevin, Judge Green described the rule as applying to an action "by a conditional vendor to recover from a conditional vendee possession of certain machinery [etc.]" Saranac Machine Co. v. Nants & Co., 164 Tenn. 457, 458-459, 51 S.W. (2d) 479. As to the second question whether the smoke-house and its accessories, after being attached to realty, lost their identity as personal property and became fixtures, we have found no Tennessee case which furnishes precise authority. We have a number of decisions which are relevant, but where the question presented was as to the rights of third parties, mortgagees or innocent purchasers, undertaking to set up rights against the conditional vendor of the personalty. The following rule is supported by a wealth of authority from other jurisdictions: In Bank & Trust Co. v. Fred W. Wolf Co., 114 Tenn. 255, 86 S.W. 310, the suit was between a subsequent mortgagee who had no notice of a conditional contract of sale of certain machinery affixed to the realty, against the conditional vendor. It was held that the mortgagee should prevail but this Court said, in the course of its opinion: In Savage & Co. v. Mayfield, 157 Tenn. 676, 11 S.W. (2d) 855, the suit was between the conditional vendor of certain machinery which was affixed to the realty, and a subsequent innocent purchaser without notice. The Wolf case, supra, was affirmed, and the foregoing excerpt from the opinion was quoted and approved. We agree with the Chancellor that this statement in the Wolfe case has become more than dictum, and is an evidence that the Tennessee Supreme *747 Court has allied itself with those Courts of other jurisdictions which support the rule stated above. As to the third proposition that the Chancellor erred in permitting L.C. Spiehs Company, Inc., to intervene as an assignee of the original complainant, Julian Engineering Company, L.C. Spiehs Company, Inc., claims as assignee only, and has and claims no greater or other rights than those which the Julian Engineering Company had to assign. The original bill in this cause was filed March 1, 1951. The assignment, which is made a part of the intervening petition and exhibited with it, is dated November 20, 1951. Since the decree of the Chancery Court is for possession only, the original complainant, Julian Engineering Company, takes possession of the subject matter of the conditional sales contract for the use and benefit of its assignee, L.C. Spiehs Company, Inc. The rights of the assignor and assignee are affected by the assignment, but no rights of the defendants in the subject matter are affected by it. It follows that the defendants' rights were not affected by the intervention, and since they were not prejudiced by it, there is no merit in that assignment of error. Finally, motion is made by complainant to dismiss the appeal for failure to give appeal bond in a proper amount. Bond was made in the sum of $250 to secure the costs. By the motion, it is insisted that Code Sec. 9043 applies, and that bond should have been given on condition of the payment of "the whole debt, damages and costs." Since the complainant, in conduct of the litigation below, was very careful to avoid establishing the amount of the "whole debt," and since, as stated, there was no decree for a sum certain in money, the complainant, in his motion, makes no estimate of what the amount of the bond should have been. The exact language of Section 9043, upon which the motion is predicated, is: Under the facts brought out in the Chancery Court, it is by no means established that because the note sued on was for $4,000, that the whole debt of the defendant to the complainant is in that amount. Furthermore, the promissory note was for the payment of a sum certain in money, and it was not a "bond or written obligation for the delivery of the specific articles" in the sense of the statute. The "the" before "specific articles" is an unexplained interpolation of the codifiers of 1932, and does not occur in the original Act, nor in the Code of 1858, Sec. 3162. In determining what the language "bonds or written obligations for the delivery of specific articles" means, the rule of noscitur a sociis, Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 110, 289 S.W. 363, 53 A.L.R. 821, applies, and since all other appeals upon which the bond must be in the amount of "the whole debt, damages and costs," are from decrees or judgments for the payment of specific sums of money, we must hold that that is the effect of the language under consideration. Such was its construction in an early case where the opinion was written by Judge Sneed in 1877: The motion to dismiss the appeal is overruled, the decree of the Chancellor is in all respects affirmed at appellant's cost.