Porter v. Shotwell
Porter v. Shotwell
Opinion of the Court
This action was brought and an ' attachment in aid was sued out and levied upon a lot of buckwheat as the property of defendant. Inter-pleader claimed the grain and filed his interplea therefor. He prevailed in the trial court. .
It appears that defendant was a miller and that he had a warehouse or storage building situated three or
The, instructions for interpleader submitted that if these acts of defendant were in good faith, while they should be considered by the jury, yet alone they did not, of themselves, render the storage of the grain and the transfer to interpleader fraudulent. Other instructions affirmed the legal validity of a change of possession of the property by a transfer of the receipt to inter-pleader.
Much has been said by plaintiff to show that the receipt held by interpleader was not what is technically known as a warehouse receipt; and that its transfer to interpleader did not, and could not, transfer possession of the property.
Defendant’s refused instructions were properly rejected by the trial court. The first recites certain named acts of defendant in regard to his access to the building and his opportunities to remove its contents, and states that such acts could be taken into consideration in determining who was in possession. Substantially, the same things had been included in interpleader’s instruction number two, and the refusal was therefore harmless. But in addition to that, the instructions, as asked, left wholly out of consideration whether the interpleader knew of defendant’s supposed conduct, or assented thereto.
The second instruction refused, submits the hypothesis of a mere pretense of possession as between the warehouse company and defendant, but in no way makes it necessary to find that interpleader was a party to the sham, or had knowledge of it.
We have not discovered anything to authorize a reversal and the judgment will be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.