Hardy v. Keeler
| Decision Date | 30 September 1870 |
| Citation | 56 Ill. 152,1870 WL 6494 |
| Parties | CHARLES M. HARDY et al.v.CYRUS KEELER. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
APPEAL from the Recorder's Court of the city of Chicago; the Hon. WILLIAM K. MCALLISTER, Judge, presiding.
This was an action of trover, brought by Keeler against Hardy, Dailey and Miller. There was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff. The defendants Hardy and Dailey appealed. Mr. C. M. HARDY, for the appellants.
Messrs. KINNEY, PECK & KINNEY, for the appellee.
The evidence sufficiently sustains the claim of title to the property in question in the appellee, at least it is of such a character that the verdict of a jury finding that issue in his favor will not, and ought not, to be disturbed by an appellate court.
It is insisted that the appellee can not recover on the evidence in this case, in an action of trover. The action was originally commenced in replevin, before a justice of the peace, but the property was not found by the officer; service of the writ was had on the appellants, and the suit progressed as in an action of trover.
It appears that the appellee allowed his former wife, who had been divorced from him, to have the use of the property in question. It seems that she had rented the house of one William T. Miller, impleaded with the appellants, and to secure him in the rents, she executed to him a chattel mortgage on the property. It does not appear that appellee knew of the execution of the mortgage at the time, or that he ever ratified the act after he received information of what had been done by his former wife. The rent was not paid when due, and the landlord undertook to foreclose the chattel mortgage, and for that purpose seized the goods with a view to sell the same in satisfaction of the mortgage indebtedness. Immediately upon receiving information of the seizure of the goods, the appellee replevied the goods of the officer having the same in possession, and placed them back again in the possession of Mrs. Keeler. The landlord then issued his distress warrant for the rent due, and, by the direction of the appellant Hardy, the goods were again seized by the bailiff, with the assistance of the appellant Daly, and taken out of the possession of Mrs. Keeler, where they had been placed by the appellee when the same were replevied only a short time before. This last taking, alleged to be wrongful, is the act complained of, and to recover damages for which wrongful taking, this suit was instituted.
The general rule is, that before a party can maintain trover, he must prove that he has a general or special property in the goods, and, if the original taking is not wrongful or tortious in its inception, he must prove a conversion of the property, or, where there is no actual conversion, such demand, and refusal to return the property before the commencement of the suit as amounts to a conversion in law. The rule is, however, well settled, that if the taking in the...
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Morris v. Gleason
...state the law and have no tendency to mislead the jury, and that is all that can be required: Gilchrist v. Gilchrist, 76 Ill. 281; Hardy v. Keeler, 56 Ill. 152; Graves v. Shoefelt, 60 Ill. 462; Daily v. Daily 64 Ill. 329; Howard F. & M. Ins. Co. v. Cornick, 24 Ill. 455; Ill. Cent. R. R. Co.......
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