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141 Wis. 544

Carpenter v. Carpenter

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided February 1, 1910

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1910-02-01

II. Reid, Judge. Action to foreclose a chattel mortgage. The issues raised by the pleadings are fairly shown by the-following summary of the decision of the case as to facts: October 8, 1902, defendants, who were then husband and wife, gave plaintiff, — an elderly lady and mother of defendant Willard E. Carpenter and two daughters, Willard being the youngest child and some thirty-seven years of age, — a mortgage on a newspaper plants purporting to secure payment of Willard’s…

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Mere manual transition of such a paper is one thing, delivery thereof as an element of a contractual obligation is another. The former without mutual intent to give validity to the paper, but a mutual intent to the contrary, does not constitute the latter.” (Citing cases.)”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Garrison v. Anderson

Relies on Hodge v. Smith · Marling v. FitzGerald · Nutting v. Minnesota Fire Insurance

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1910-02-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently November 1944

1 federal appellate · 7 state decisions

401910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Maesiiall, J.

¶1It is considered that the findings of fact are protected by the principle that they cannot be disturbed unless they are against the clear preponderance of the evidence.

¶2The foregoing conclusion leaves as verities, that the note and mortgage were executed and placed in escrow to take effect according to their terms only upon the happening of an event which had not transpired when this action was commenced to enforce them; that Aneta B. Carpenter became the owner of the property described therein subject to that situation and that the papers were in form taken out of escrow without her consent by appellant and her son.

¶3The verities suggested are ruled by the familiar principle of law that, in the absence of some efficient element of estop-pel,' and none exists or is claimed to exist here, if an instrument is delivered by the maker to the obligee, or to another for him, or as custodian for both, accompanied by an agreement, verbal or in writing, that it shall not take effect- till some specified event shall have occurred, it will have no validity till the condition shall have been satisfied; but remain in the meantime the same to all intents and purposes as if it had never left the possession of the maker. Mere manual *547tradition of sucb a paper is one thing, delivery thereof as an element of a contractual obligation -is another. The former without mutual intent to give validity to the paper, but a mutual intent to the contrary, c^oes not constitute the latter. Nutting v. Minnesota F. Ins. Co. 98 Wis. 26, 73 N. W. 432: Thorne v. Ætna Ins. Co. 102 Wis. 593, 78 N. W. 920; State ex rel. Jones v. Chamber of Comm. 121 Wis. 110, 98 N. W. 930; Golden v. Meier, 129 Wis. 14, 107 N. W. 27; Hodge v. Smith, 130 Wis. 326, 110 N. W. 192; Marling v. Fitz Gerald, 138 Wis. 93, 120 N. W. 388; Swanke v. Herdeman, 138 Wis. 654, 120 N. W. 414.

¶4By the Gourt. — Judgment affirmed. -

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