Griffin v. Griffin

• Decision Date: 29 June 1908
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: RICHARD B. GRIFFIN ET AL v. JOEL P. GRIFFIN

46 So. 945

93 Miss. 651

RICHARD B. GRIFFIN ET AL v. JOEL P. GRIFFIN

Supreme Court of Mississippi

June 29, 1908

October 1908

FROM the circuit court of Forrest county, HON. WILLIAM H. COOK Judge.

Richard B. Griffin and others, appellants, were plaintiffs in the court below; Joel P. Griffin, appellee, was defendant there. The action was replevin, involving title to personal property. Plaintiffs claimed to have acquired title to the property by purchase from Homer F. Griffin and David H Ravesies. From a judgment in defendant's favor plaintiffs appealed to the supreme court. A specific statement of the facts is wholly unnecessary in view of the decision reached by the supreme court.

Instructions No. 3 given for defendant, and No. 7, asked by plaintiffs but refused by the court, were as follows:

No. 3 "The court further instructs the jury in this case that if they believe from the testimony in this case that the defendant came into possession of the property lawfully, and that it was in his possession at the time of the alleged sale by Homer F. Griffin and David H. Ravesies, to plaintiffs, and that defendant used the said property and treated it as his own for some time prior to the date of the said pretended sale, that this is a circumstance to be, and may be considered by the jury in determining whether the said property belongs to the defendant in this case."

No. 7 "The court instructs the jury, for the plaintiffs, that unless they believe from the evidence that Homer F. Griffin and David H. Ravesies, on or about April 27, 1907, sold and delivered the property involved in this suit to the defendant, Joel P. Griffin, for a valuable consideration, then the jury must find for the plaintiffs."

Reversed and remanded.

Stevens, Stevens & Cook and Watkins & Watkins, for appellants.

The defendant utterly failed to show any consideration for a purchase. He admits he paid nothing in cash either to Homer F. Griffin or to Ravesies. He did not show wherein Ravesies was indebted to him on or about April 27th, and does not attempt to assert that the mules were turned over to him in consideration of the cancellation of an indebtedness. Upon the theory of purchase the defense must fail for want of consideration. At any rate the court erred in refusing to grant appellants' instruction No. 7, which was designed to submit to the jury the question as to whether or not there was a sale to the defendant for a valuable consideration.

Instruction No. 3, granted for defendant is erroneous because there is no evidence that the property was in the actual possession of the defendant or that he had treated it as his own, and because the wards "pretended sale" appear therein.

W. S. Pierce, for appellee.

"The plaintiff in a replevin action must recover on the strength of his own title or right of possession, and not on the weakness of his adversary's title or right of...