Corn Exch. Bank v. Blye

• Decision Date: 07 October 1890
• Citation: 25 N.E. 208,123 N.Y. 132
• Parties: CORN EXCHANGE BANK v. BLYE et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

123 N.Y. 132

25 N.E. 208

CORN EXCHANGE BANK

v.BLYE et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 7, 1890.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, second department.

W. Van Namee, for appellant.

L. A. Gould, for respondent.

FINCH, J.

The judgment rendered in this case is without precedent, and opens new possibilities of litigation if sustained by this court. The question arose on demurrer. The complaint alleged that the defendant became receiver of the Middletown National Bank in November, 1884, and as such receiver came into possession of 46 coupon bonds of the West Point Manufacturing Company, a corporation organized under the laws of Nebraska; that plaintiff was entitled to the possession of said bonds, having a special property therein; that in December, 1884, the plaintiff demanded of defendant possession of said bonds, which was refused; that plaintiff thereupon brought an action in the supreme court to recover possession of the bonds and damages for their detention; that the defendant interposed as a defense a claim of ownership on the part of the bank, a denial of plaintiff's title, and the allegation that Poole and Sherman were the real parties in interest. The complaint further alleged that the issues thus raised were tried before the court and a jury in November, 1885, and such issues were determined wholly in plaintiff's favor, and judgment was rendered in his favor for a return of the bonds, or their value, fixed at the sum of $23,000, and for damages occasioned by the detention to the amount of $2,315.88; the judgment further providing for a recovery of the adjudged value, if a return could not be had; that the date of the trial was November 5, 1885; that the defendant appealed to the general term, where the judgment was affirmed, and then to this court, where it was again affirmed, and upon filing the remittitur in the supreme court final judgment was entered on or about June 10, 1889; that defendant ‘failed, neglected, and refused to deliver to plaintiff said bonds' at the time of the trial, or thereafter, until on or about June 14, 1889; and that during such interval the bonds ‘were injured, damaged, and depreciated in value in the sum of twenty thousand dollars,’ and judgment was demanded accordingly. To this complaint, the defendant demurred, claiming that it stated no cause of action; but the demurrer was overruled, and that decision affirmed by the general term.

The complaint discloses a single tort, which has formed the subject of an action, and been redressed by a judgment therein. It alleges no new or separate demand, but simply a continuance of the refusal to obey it after judgment, and pending the appeals therefrom. If the defendant's continued possession during that interval was a wrong at all, it was not new or separate, but a continuance of that sued upon, and dependent upon the demand proved in that action. At the most, the complaint shows an extension of the damages beyond the date of the trial judgment, and growing out of the delay, inseparable from the defendant's righ of appeal; and so we are required to say, if we affirm this judgment, either that the damages flowing from a single wrong may be divided into two parts, and each part form the subject of a separate action, or that the exercise by the defendant of the right of appeal upon the precise terms and conditions dictated by the law constitutes a new and illegal detention of the property in controversy. The first proposition is of course inadmissible, and the judgment must stand, if at all, upon the second; and that necessarily involves a conclusion that the appeals taken, by reason of the delay which they occasioned, constituted a new detention, and a new wrong, for which a separate action could be maintained. Neither reason nor authority justify that conclusion. The...