Edmunds v. Hill

• Decision Date: 20 October 1882
• Citation: 133 Mass. 445
• Parties: Asa E. Edmunds v. Edward S. Hill
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

133 Mass. 445

Asa E. Edmunds v. Edward S. Hill

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

October 20, 1882

Worcester.

Exceptions overruled.

J. L Hunter & W. A. Williams, for the defendant.

A. J Bartholomew, for the plaintiff.

Devens, J. Endicott, Lord & C. Allen, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Devens, J.

This is an action of replevin. The plaintiff claimed title to the property under a bill of sale given to him by his son, John E. Edmunds, and dated August 4, 1876, which was asserted by the defendant to be fraudulent, and intended to prevent the property from being attached by the creditors of John E. In order to maintain this, he was permitted to show that the property remained in the possession of John E.; that the plaintiff exercised no ownership over it; that when attached as the property of John E. the plaintiff receipted for it; and that, when sold by the officer, the plaintiff made no public objection or assertion of his ownership. Mortgages were given by John E. to the plaintiff of other personal property on March 26, 1878; and the defendant offered to show, by the cross-examination of John E. Edmunds and other evidence, that these latter mortgages were fraudulent, and intended to keep the property covered up and concealed from creditors. This evidence was properly excluded by the presiding judge. The creditors, by virtue of the judgment in favor of whom the sale was made under which the defendant justified, did not become such until more than a year after the bill of sale in dispute was made, and no connection whatever was offered to be shown between it and the mortgages. They constituted distinct and independent transactions, in no way connected with it. Unless this connection was shown, the relations between the plaintiff and John E. Edmunds, in 1878, the then financial condition of the latter, and the purposes and motives which then induced conveyances of property from one to the other, had no legitimate bearing upon the title conveyed by the bill of sale made in 1876.

Nor did the plaintiff waive his title to the property by receipting for it. This was legally entirely consistent with an intention ultimately to assert title, should circumstances render it desirable for him so to do. The receipt was indeed a promise to deliver over the goods to the officer. Having done this, he might then bring his action of replevin trespass or trover to test his right. Failing to do this, in an action...