Opinion ID: 878696
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: agister's lien

Text: The District Court submitted this issue to the jury under the instruction that if there were an express or implied contract for keeping, feeding, herding, pasturing or ranching stock, the farmer to whom the stock was entrusted had a lien upon such stock for the amount due for keeping, feeding, herding, pasturing or ranching of said stock and could retain possession thereof until the sum due was paid. See § 71-3-1201(1), MCA. Hill claimed that the Turleys were not entitled to an agister's lien in this case, and that because they kept his cattle, he was entitled to damages for conversion and for punitive damages as well. The jury found against Hill on those issues in one verdict but directed in the second verdict that the cattle be returned to Hill. The District Court refused to alter and amend the judgment with respect to the agister's lien, saying: This Court interprets the verdicts to mean that: (1) Plaintiff gets nothing; and (2) Defendants are awarded $7,000 and only that amount and no more, and that defendants will not be entitled to keep the cattle in addition. The jury verdict was against the plaintiff and in favor of the defendants. To interpret otherwise would frustrate the jury verdict. We agree. The plaintiff's claim for damages for wrongful conversion of his cattle was decided adversely to Hill by the jury verdict. Hill contends on appeal that since he was entitled to the peaceful possession of the ranch premises for the purposes of running cattle thereon under his grazing lien, the possession of cattle was with Hill and not with the Turleys. He further contends that an agister's lien arises only when the possession of livestock is delivered into the care, custody and control of another under a contract of bailment and such lien is not given to an employee or a herder. He cites Engle v. Pfister (1953), 127 Mont. 65, 257 P.2d 561; Noel v. Cowan (1927), 80 Mont. 258, 260 P. 116; Love v. Hecer (1923), 67 Mont. 497, 215 P. 1099. Moreover, Hill contends that the Turleys did nothing to enforce their asserted lien under the mandatory procedures to be followed in § 71-3-1203, MCA, respecting enforcement. The effect of the jury verdict was to order that Hill's cattle be returned to him, and that he recover no damages for the alleged conversion of his cattle. The request of Hill on appeal is that the case be sent back to the District Court for the limited purpose of determining the amount of damages due Hill for conversion of his cattle including a reasonable allowance for attorney's fees, both in the lower court and upon appeal. We would indeed frustrate the purpose of the jury, if, after the jury had decided that Hill was not entitled to damages, we were now to return the cause for another jury trial upon the same issue of damages. Whether or not the Turleys claim of agister's lien was valid, the jury has already determined that Hill is entitled to no damages by virtue of the same.