When you place a chest next to an entity (eg. Pig) you can turn on hitboxes and the chest appears in the front of the mobs' hitbox.

To Reproduce
1) find a mob
2) turn on hitboxes
3) place a chest near the mob
4) stand in the direction where you can see the edge of the hitbox in the chest, you see the chest in the front of the hitbox everytime.

Disclaimer: this ticket is likely a duplicate but should help with more bug fixes in the future.