Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/377

 AMERICAN STATE BANK, a corporation, formerly German-American State Bank of Burlington, N. D., Appellant, v. A.C. DAYTON and J. A. CARROLL, co-partners under the firm name and style of Dayton & Carroll, Respondents.

Chattel mortgages—evidence in conversion action held to warrant directing verdict for defendant purchasers from mortgagor.

In an action for the conversion of grain, upon which the plaintiff claimed a mortgage lien, the trial court directed a verdict for the defendants. The evidence is examined and it is held that no error was committed in directing the verdict.

Appeal from the District Court of Ward County; Leighton, J.

Affirmed.

Greenleaf & Wooledge, for appellant.

B. H. Bradford, for respondents.

, J. This is an appeal from a judgment of dismissal and from an order denying a new trial. The action was brought to recover the value of certain wheat purchased by the defendants, upon which the plaintiff claimed a lien through a chattel mortgage given on Gobernatz, the defendants’ vendor. At the conclusion of the evidence the trial court directed the jury to return a verdict for the defendants. The facts are as follows:

In November, 1917, one Chris Gobernatz gave the plaintiff and appellant a chattel mortgage covering a large amount of personal property used by the mortgagor in operating a certain farm and the crop to be raised in 1918 upon the west half of sec. 5, township 157, range 83 to secure an indebtedness of $2,781.32. In December, 1917, he gave another mortgage to the plaintiff, covering substantially the same property. During the following season the mortgagor farmed the land described in the chattel mortgages, and also the northwest quarter of sec. 6 of the same