Koster & Wythe v. Massey (1958)
Citation: 262 F.2d 60 · Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (opinion by Pope, J.), on appeal from the District Court of Guam · Decided: November 26, 1958
Source note (2026-10-18):
- Links on this page to
https://static.case.law/f2d/262/cases/0060-01.jsonare an (unofficial Caselaw Access Project copy, retrieved before 2026-10-18; host disallows automated access); no official or otherwise permitted full-text copy was located on 2026-10-18.
Facts
Koster & Wythe sued Lon Massey, doing business as Massey Equipment Company, in the District Court of Guam and had a writ of attachment issued. The United States Marshal for the District of Guam executed it by taking possession of Massey’s personal property. After a defense verdict, and while the plaintiffs’ new-trial motion was pending, the court discharged the attachment under Guam Code of Civil Procedure § 542b, which limits an attachment of personal property to one year. The Marshal then claimed storage charges for the attached property; the court ordered the plaintiffs to pay USD 8,709.41 into the registry or have their case dismissed and execution issue against them (the amount was later reduced to USD 5,000, which the plaintiffs paid).
Holding
The minute entry was an appealable final order under the collateral-order doctrine: a dispute between the attaching plaintiffs and the Marshal over the reasonableness of storage charges for attached property is separable from the merits and would otherwise escape review. Payment under compulsion did not waive the right to appeal. The Marshal’s motion to dismiss the appeal was denied.
Reasoning
The court relied on Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949), and Swift & Co. Packers v. Compania Colombiana Del Caribe, 339 U.S. 684 (1950): the cost dispute was collateral to the action, was a controversy between the plaintiffs and the officer rather than between the parties, and could not be raised in an ordinary taxation of costs if the plaintiffs lost on the merits.
Practical impact
- Judgment creditor / attaching party: custody of levied personal property on Guam is at the levying party’s expense. Today’s statute lets the Marshal demand advance deposits for taking and keeping property in five-day increments and release the property if a deposit is not made (7 GCA § 20406(5)), and an attachment of personal property still lapses one year after the writ issues (7 GCA § 20408, from CCP § 542b; the Compiler cites this case under §§ 20406(3) and 20408).
- Buyer: the decision supplies no auction minimum-bid rule and does not decide the merits of the disputed storage charges. The one-year discharge is procedural background; the holding is the appealability of the separate costs order.
- The later opinion, 293 F.2d 922 (9th Cir. May 17, 1961), was also read in full in Justia’s unofficial reproduction. It reversed the underlying tort verdict for failure to instruct on ultrahazardous bomb-demilitarization activity and remanded for a new trial. It did not decide the Marshal’s disputed storage charges.
Good-law status
needs_verification for current later treatment. The complete opinion and footnotes
were independently read through the web reader in Justia’s unofficial reporter
reproduction on 2026-10-17. Direct requests to CAP and OpenJurist returned 403;
the direct Justia request also returned 403, while the web reader supplied the actual
opinion. Those failures were not bypassed. The 2021 Genpro opinion cites this case
on a collateral issue (¶ 10), which is limited positive treatment, not a citator check.
The inherited 2026-10-16 review separately attributed an actual retrieval to
https://static.case.law/f2d/262/cases/0060-01.json (unofficial CAP transcription).
The failed fresh request does not retract that earlier retrieval provenance.
Applies in →
guam · equipment-and-machinery · personal-property-execution-sales-by-state
Legal information, not legal advice.