Panhandle Feeders, Inc. v. C & D Enterprises, LLC (2000)

Citation: 1 P.3d 647 (Wyo. 2000) · Court: Supreme Court of Wyoming, No. 99-153 · Decided: June 1, 2000 · Opinion: Lehman, C.J.

Source note (2026-10-18):

• Links on this page to https://static.case.law/p3d/1/cases/0647-01.json are 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.

Opinion text retrieved 2026-10-17 from the Caselaw Access Project’s static copy of the Pacific Reporter (static.case.law, P.3d volume 1), an unofficial host.

Facts

Wilcox leased pasture land and contracted with Panhandle Feeders to graze Panhandle’s 876 cattle on it, paid by weight gained. C & D bought the land subject to Wilcox’s lease. When Wilcox failed to pay rent, C & D asserted a lien on Panhandle’s cattle under W.S. 29-7-101(a) and refused to let Panhandle remove them. The district court granted C & D summary judgment, finding an agister’s lien “for pasture furnished.”

Holding

Reversed, with judgment for Panhandle. Section 29-7-101(a) gives a lien to one who has “provided” feed. Because Wilcox held the exclusive possessory interest in the grass, C & D “could not have provided feed to Panhandle’s cattle because it had none to provide” and had no lien.

Reasoning

• The court applied the plain language of the unambiguous statute.
• Holding otherwise would make the livestock owner a guarantor of its counterparty’s rent even after paying that counterparty.

Practical impact

• Buyers of livestock or goods held under a claimed lien: the claimant must fall within the statutory class (made, repaired, transported, stored, kept, fed or cared for); a landlord’s rent claim against a tenant does not become a lien on a third party’s animals.
• Owners: goods detained by a non-qualifying claimant can be recovered.

Good-law status

Still good law as of 2026-10-17; cited in McTiernan v. Jellis, 2013 WY 151 (grazing lease versus agistment). Since the decision, § 29-7-101(a)(ii) has required feeder’s liens to be filed with the Secretary of State (current text retrieved from wyoleg.gov 2026-10-17).

Rechecked 2026-10-18 against the full CAP opinion: the only later Wyoming citing decision located through CourtListener is McTiernan v. Jellis (2013), which applies it; § 29-7-101(a) is unchanged in the 2026 compiled title. Not a commercial citator check.

Applies in →

wyoming · towing-storage-and-mechanics-lien-sales · mctiernan-v-jellis-2013