Court Opinion

ID: 9444015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:38:20.177051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:47:24.536186
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
It seems clear to me that the gift was not completed until the calves were sold. Selection of the calves was not only necessary to a delivery under an oral gift, but was also a prerequisite under the written “Bill of Sale”.1 The one hun*337dred calves were never selected. As near as that came to be accomplished was that two hundred calves were put in a separate pasture, after which they became “intermingled with the rest of the cattle on the ranch”, and finally, on October 22, 1948, the seven hundred ninety-two calves kept in a common pasture or pastures were sold and the proceeds of their sale were divided so that $11,024.40 was received by the Wichita Falls Young Men’s Christian Association. Then for the first time the Association took title to specific property, and that was money, the proceeds of sale.
The subject of the “Bill of Sale” was not an undivided interest in a herd of calves, but specifically one hundred calves to be selected. Selection of the calves was required by the express terms of the instrument. Clearly, until the calves were selected, the Association took no title to any specific cattle. It did not even acquire an undivided interest in the herd. See Collins v. McCanless, 179 Tenn. 656, 169 S.W.2d 850, 145 A.L.R. 1380 and attached annotation. Until the calves were selected, the gift remained executory.
Conditions precedent to the completion of gifts are not infrequent. 24 Am.Jur., Gifts, See. 45, see also Sec. 22; 38 C.J. S., Gifts, § 37. This precise condition, selection of the particular property out of a larger group or mass, has occurred more frequently in cases of true sale than of gift. The position of a donee, however, is certainly no stronger than that of a vendee. Even if the “Bill of Sale” evidenced a genuine sale, the rule would be the same.
In Cleveland v. Williams, 29 Tex. 204, 94 Am.Dec. 274, the vendor sold corn in his crib before his death, and appointed an agent to measure and deliver it, which the agent did after the death of the principal, but before it was known to the parties. In an action by the administrator of the deceased vendor to recover the value of the corn, the jury were charged as follows: “If you find from the evidence that the corn in question, that is the hundred bushels of corn, was in a bulk with other corn, and had not been measured out and separated from tbe bulk, so that the same could be identified previous to the death of Hall (vendor), then the sale was incomplete, and you will find for the plaintiff the value of the corn as proved.” The Texas Supreme Court held that the charge was correct, and discussed the principle at great length. It is unnecessary to quote the sound and illuminating language of the Texas Court for there is no disagreement among any of the authorities on this question. See Blanton v. Langston, 60 Tex. 149, 150; 46 Am.Jur., Sales, Sec. 426; 77 C.J.S., Sales, § 253(2), p. 1039. The payment of $11,024.40 out of the proceeds of sale of the 792 calves completed the gift too late to prevent appel-lees from realizing income in that amount.
It is so clear to me that there was never any completed gift of the one hundred calves that I refrain from any discussion of the question of whether, assuming such a gift, the donor would have thereby realized income. Under the facts of this case, that question seems to me to be abstract.
I, therefore, respectfully dissent.