Opinion ID: 1928308
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: period of detention

Text: In the second and final summarized assignment of error, Allemang contends that the Court of Appeals erred in reducing the period of wrongful detention as determined by the district court. This issue is controlled by the rule that the rights of the parties in a replevin action are to be determined as of the time the replevin action was filed, and what takes place thereafter is immaterial in the consideration and determination of the case. Barelmann v. Fox, 239 Neb. 771, 478 N.W.2d 548 (1992). In its cross-appeal, Kearney Center argues that the district court's award for interest damages should not have been based on a 288-day detention because the district court held on October 8, 1992, that Kearney Center could retain possession of the equipment until Allemang provided proof of insurance. Claiming that Allemang did not provide such proof of insurance until December 23, 1992, Kearney Center argues that the detention during the 76 days intervening between October 8 and December 23 was not wrongful; rather, it was court authorized and approved, and thus lawful. We agree. In Schneider v. Daily, 148 Neb. 413, 416, 27 N.W.2d 550, 552 (1947), we imposed upon the owner of personal property in a replevin action the duty to mitigate his damage the same as any other litigant. The Schneider plaintiff received an order directing the sheriff to release, return, and restore the plaintiffs attached property. The evidence showed that the sheriff left the property where he had found it, on the plaintiffs neighbor's farm. The plaintiff claimed that the sheriff never released the property. We held that the property was released when the sheriffs deputy notified the plaintiff of the release and that the plaintiff could not claim damages merely because the plaintiff would not pick up and deliver the property to his own home. In like fashion, we held in Olson v. Pedersen, 194 Neb. 159, 231 N.W.2d 310 (1975), that a property owner's duty of mitigation included the duty to file legal action to secure return of the property he alleged was illegally detained by the defendants, noting that `the rules for awarding damages should be such as to discourage even persons against whom wrongs have been committed from passively suffering economic loss which could be averted by reasonable efforts....' Id. at 170, 231 N.W.2d at 317, quoting Charles T. McCormick, Handbook on the Law of Damages § 33 (1935). Even if the district court wrongly imposed the insurance condition, because it ruled that Kearney Center could retain possession of the equipment until Allemang provided such proof, the district court improvidently assessed damages against Kearney Center for the period from the October 8, 1992, date of its order until the date Allemang finally provided such proof. If Allemang wished to claim that the district court was wrong in imposing the condition, his remedy was to assign error to such on his appeal to the Court of Appeals; that he did not do. While the evidence suggests that Allemang obtained insurance some days prior to December 23,1992, it was his burden under the district court's order to establish when he did so. Having failed to adduce more precise evidence on the matter, he cannot complain of the use of December 23, 1992, as such date.