Citation Numbers: 34 Me. 192
Judges: Rice
Filed Date: 7/1/1852
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 9/24/2021
The opinion of the Court, Shepley, C. J., Tenney, Howard, Rice and Appleton, J. J., was drawn up by
The contract between the plaintiff and Webber seems to have been very loose and inartificial in its terms. An examination of all its provisions and stipulations will however disclose the intention of the parties thereto with reasonable certainty. The question to be determined is, in whom was the title to the hay at the time it was attached ?
By the terms of the contract, the plaintiff was to stock the farm with a yoke of oxen, and with cows and sheep. Web-ber was to carry on the farm, and to keep this stock of cattle and sheep thereon, feeding them with the hay which it produced, and render to the plaintiff for the rent of the farm, one half of the wool, one half of the lambs that should come of the sheép, and one half of the productions of the cows and of the crops, except the hay produced on the farm, all of which was to be used on the farm for the stock.
This construction is entirely consistent with the situation of the parties and the nature of the contract between them, which would seem to be rather a special agreement for carrying on the farm, than a lease in the technical sense of the term.
This case is distinguishable from Turner v. Bachelder, 17 Maine, 257, cited by plaintiff. In that case there was a lease for a term of five years. The lease provided that the lessor should ''furnish four cows, one horse, and other stock sufficient to eat up all the hay that should grow on said farm,” but contained no stipulation, like that in the case at bar, that the hay produced should be used on the farm for the stock of the lessor.
The case at bar more nearly resembles the case of Lewis v. Lyman, 22 Pick. 438, in which the lease contained a provision “ that the hay and fodder should be fed out on the farm,” the stock on the farm being the property of the lessor. The Court in that case held that the hay was not liable to attachment by the creditors of. the tenant. We are therefore of the opinion that Webber had no attachable interest in the hay.