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Pertinent Legal Findings 



Time for Eemoving Standing Timber 

 When a deed to standing timber does not limit the time within 

 which the same is to be removed, the landowner is not entitled to 

 maintain suit to cancel the deed on the mere ground that the pur- 

 chaser has failed to cut and remove the timber within a reasonable 

 time. (Mississippi supreme court, Forest Products & Manufacturing 

 Company, 66 Southern Reporter 279.) 



Payment for Lumber Inspection 



According to a decision of the Michigan supreme court handed 

 down in tlie case of Fish vs. Crawford Manufacturing Company, 79 

 Northwestern Reporter 793, a lumber company which has agreed to 

 sell a quantity of lumber may be held liable for the whole inspection 

 charges, where it appears that the inspector was agreed upon by both 

 parties to tally the lumber, that the lumber company's representatives 

 permitted him to complete his work and paid him one-half the charges, 

 and that there was a local custom binding the seller of lumber 

 to pay the entire inspection charges in the first instance at least. 



Damages for Breaking Logging Contract 

 Where one who has contracted to conduct logging operations for a 

 lumber company is prevented from completing the work on account 

 of the company's repudiation of the contract, he is entitled to 

 recover the contract price for all work done and the profits he would 

 have realized from finishing the work. (Kentucky court of appeals, 

 WUford vs. Langstaflf-Orm Manufacturing Company, 170 South- 

 western Reporter 1.) 



Enforcement of Contract to Convey Timber 



Suit lies to compel a landowner to comply with a cont»aet to convey 

 all the standing timber on a certain tract; the buyer's remedy not 

 being limited to a claim for damages for breach of the contract. 

 A contract to deliver good title to standing timber on payment of 

 an agreed price involves the performance of concurrent conditions; 

 it is the primary duty of the buyer to tender payment, and when he 

 does that the seller is obligated to at once deliver title. (United 

 States district court, northern district of West Virginia ; Wilson vs. 

 Seybold; 216 Federal Reporter 975.) 



Eight to Rescind Logging Contract 

 The rule of law that mere failure to pay an installment due under 

 a contract does not ordinarily justify the other party to recover 

 damages on the theory of repudiation of the entire contract was 

 applied to a logging contract by the Minnesota supreme court in the 

 case of Beatty vs. Howe Lumber Company, 79 Northwestern Reporter 

 1013. Plaintiffs entered into a written contract with the lumber 

 company to cut, boom and deliver logs, payment for the service to 

 be made in installments, and on the company's failure to make one 

 of the stipulated payments, plaintiffs elected to treat the contract 

 at an end and recover not only for services already performed, but 

 damages for preventing further performance. 



Confusion of Lumber 



There is an interesting principle of law that when one person 

 wrongfully confuses quantities of goods belonging to him with those 

 owned by another under such circumstances that the separate quan- 

 tities cannot be ascertained, the former must bear the loss, and in a 

 proper case may be denied the right to claim any of the confused 

 mass. This principle was invoked in the ease of Keweenaw Asso- 

 ciation vs. O'Neil, 79 Northwestern Reporter 183, wherein plaintiff 

 sued to replevy lumber manufactured by defendant from logs cut 

 from defendant 's land, it appears that this lumber was commingled 

 with lumber cut from logs which admittedly belonged to defendant. 

 Answering the claim made by plaintiff that this commingling of the 

 logs resulted in such confusion of property as to give plaintiff title 

 to the whole, the Wisconsin supreme court said : 



"The doctrine of accession through confusion of goods is old. 

 But it involves a forfeiture, and is never applied where it can be 

 consistently avoided. * » * 'But this rule only applies to wrong- 

 ful or fraudulent intermixtures. There may be an intentional inter- 

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mingling, and yet no wrong intended, as where a man mixes two 

 parcels together, supposing both to be his o^vn, or that he is about 

 to mingle his with his neighbor's by agreement, and mistakes the 

 parcel. In such cases, which may be deemed accidental intermix- 

 tures, it would be unreasonable and unjust that he should lose his 

 own, or be obliged to take and pay for his neighbor's, as he would 

 have been under the civil law. In many cases there will be difficulty 

 in determining precisely how he can be protected with due regard 

 to the rights of the other party, but it is clear that the law will 

 not forfeit his property in consequence of the accident or inad- 

 vertence unless a just measure of redress to the other party renders 

 it inevitable. ' In such eases, as in those where the intermingling is 

 lawful, as by agreement, the rule does not apply, and the parties 

 become tenants in common of the whole. There is no reason why 

 the same rule should not apply where the goods are identical in 

 quality, and of equal value. * * * The record discloses no bad 

 faith, and there is nothing to indicate a difference in quality or 

 value of the lumber of the same kind. If, therefore, the plaintiff 

 were entitled to the product of the two trees, he should have con- 

 tented himself with a proportionate share of the lumber." 



Receipt of Freight by Railway Company 



A car was spotted for a shipper, and, it having been loaded, he 

 notified the railway company of that fact, and stated that a bill of 

 lading would be presented for execution in the morning. Thereupon 

 the railway company switched the car to a point in its yards where 

 it could be more readily switched into an outgoing train. ^Vhile 

 standing at that point during the night, the car and its contents 

 were destroyed, and the carrier denied liability for the loss of the 

 freight on the ground that it had not received the same into its pos- 

 session. Held, that, notwithstanding the fact that no bill of lading 

 bad been issued, the jury was warranted in finding that the railway 

 company had received the shipment for transportation. (Kansas City 

 court of appeals, Morrison Grain Company vs. Missouri Pacific Ky., 

 170 Southwestern Reporter 104.) 



Responsibility for Employe's Trespass 



An employe is liable for willful trespass upon land and for wrong- 

 ful cutting of timber thereon, in the course of his employment, 

 although the acts were committed without the company's knowledge 

 or consent. (Minnesota supreme court, Helppie vs. Northwestern 

 Drainage Company, 149 Northwestern Reporter 461.) 

 Buyer's Right to Rescind Contract 



If a hardwood tank sold were not of tlic quality contracted for, 

 the buyer was entitled to rescind his purchase and return the tank 

 within a reasonable time. But before a purchaser is entitled to 

 cancel his contract, the seller must be put in substantially the same 

 position that he occupied before the contract was made. The buyer 

 must return or tender back the property at the place of delivery, 

 unless, upon making an offer so to do, he is relieved of the obliga- 

 tion by a refusal of the other party to receive the goods if tendered. 

 It is not sufficient for the buyer to make a proposal to return the 

 property, or to notify the seller that he holds it subject to his order. 

 Maine supreme judicial court, Stevens Tank & Tower Company, vs. 

 Berlins Mills Company, 92 Atlantic Reporter 180.) , 

 Logs Lost Pending Delivery 



A contract to sell several thousand sawlogs provided for measure- 

 ments in November and March, while the cutting was in process, 

 and required the seller to brand all the logs, and deliver them at a 

 point on a stream to which they were to be floated. Some of the 

 logs were lost because not branded, they having been washed away 

 by high water. Held, that the seller is not entitled to recover the 

 value of these logs on the ground that if the buyer had measured 

 the logs within the time required by the contract, they would have 

 been branded and hence not lost, since the buyer 's delay in measur- 

 ing them did not exonerate the seller 's contract duty to brand and 

 take care of the logs. (Kentucky court qf appeals, Swann-Day Lum- 

 ber Company vs. Cornett, 170 Southwestern Reporter .516.) 



