United States v. Pacific Fruit & Produce Co.

This court has been asked to determine whether or .not there was an abuse of discretion when the court below dismissed with prejudice the appellant’s action for an accounting, after the appellant had virtually admitted a failure of proof and had requested a voluntary nonsuit.

The appellant’s complaint set up twenty separate causes of action against the ap-pellee. Typical of these was the third cause of action, which involved the following undisputed facts:

In 1936 and 1937, tha United States, through the Farm Security Administration (formerly the Resettlement Administration) lent money on promissory notes to George M. Brisky and Evelyn Brisky of Chelan County, Washington, taking as security a crop and chattel mortgage that gave the United States a first lien on all fruit crops produced by the Briskys during 1937 upon specified real property. The sum of $770.11 remains due on those notes.

The funds advanced to the Briskys by the United States were insufficient to finance the entire cost of producing and marketing their 1937 fruit crops, and the additional funds were obtained from the appellee on the security of a lien on those crops. To enable these additional advances to be…