Belcher v. . Grimsley

*90 Ruffin, J. The statute in express terms provides that when lands are rented, unless otherwise agreed between the parties, the crops raised shall at all times be deemed and held to be vested in the lessor, until the rents are paid, the stipulations on the part of the tenant all fulfilled, and the. advancements made towards cultivating and securing the crop satisfied; and further, that the lessor shall be entitled to recover the possession of the crop, in an action of claim and delivery against the tenant, in case he shall remove it from the premises without his consent, or against any other person, who may get possession of and unlawfully withhold the same. Act 1876 — ’77, ch. 283. As the case fails to disclose, and as we were not favored with an argument in this court for the defendants, we are at a loss to know certainly, upon what ground the judge below rested his decision. If, as we suppose may have been the case, it proceeded upon what was inadvertently said in Curtis v. Cash, 84 N. C., 41, about the effect of such an agreement in establishing the relationship of copartners between the parties, so as to give to each the absolute right to dispose of the property as to strangers, then, the responsibility for the error committed (and we are of opinion that there was error) rests with this court apd not upon His Honor. As has been said by the Chief-Justice in Day v. Stevens.'ante, 83, the remark there made, and which may have conduced to the error in this case, was not necessary to the decision rendered in that cause, and proceeded only from a desire to show that in every point of view, that could be possibly taken of the case, the plaintiff in that action was entitled to recover. It was not then, any more than now, the purpose of the court to limit the operation of the statute, which declares that a lessor of land shall not be deemed a partner of his lessee by reason of an agreement that he shall receive as rent a share in the profits of the business. Bat. Rev., ch. 64, § 3. If on the other hand, as seems also possible, His Honor conceived, and so ruled, that because the plaintiff had reduced his claim for rents and supplies furnished, to a judgment against his *91 tenant individually, he had thereby lost his lien upon the crop raised, and his right to have the same in possession, we still think he was in error. Nothing short of an actual payment or a complete satisfaction of the lessor’s demands, meets the words of the statute or will serve to determine his-lien, or title. Neither can the fact that the defendants had no notice of the plaintiff’s claim at all impair it, in the absence of any suggestion of fraud on his part. It is a question of title, and the tenant could convey no better right to the property than he himself was possessed of. The principle of caveat emptor applies with full force to the case. The conclusion of the court is that there is error in the ruling of the court below, which entitles the plaintiff to a .venire ele novo. Error. Venire de novo.