Leflore v. Miller

• Decision Date: 24 January 1887
• Citation: 64 Miss. 204,1 So. 99
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: GREENWOOD LEFLORE v. H. F. MILLER ET AL

1 So. 99

64 Miss. 204

GREENWOOD LEFLORE v. H. F. MILLER ET AL

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 24, 1887

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Grenada County, HON. A. T. ROANE Judge.

In 1884 Greenwood LeFlore sold conditionally a mule to Scott Withers retaining the title thereto until the purchase-money should be paid. In 1885 there was still due on the mule twenty-nine dollars and seventy-eight cents, when Scott Withers induced the mercantile firm of Neal & Miller to assume this debt, and executed a deed of trust on the mule to Guy Hill, trustee for Neal & Miller. In the spring of 1885 and after the execution of this deed of trust, Neal & Miller failed in business and were unable to furnish Scott Withers with supplies. LeFlore his landlord, did so furnish him until the close of the year at the end of which time Withers was indebted to LeFlore in the sum of one hundred and thirty-seven dollars, and the latter took possession of the mule. In 1886 Guy Hill, the trustee, took the mule out of the possession of LeFlore claiming it under the deed of trust. LeFlore brought this action of replevin against Guy Hill, trustee, and Mrs. H. F. Miller, who seems in some way to have succeeded to the rights of Neal & Miller, to recover possession of the mule. The justice of the peace found for the plaintiff. Thereupon, the defendants paid the accrued court costs and tendered to the plaintiff the amount of purchase still due on the mule, which the plaintiff declined to receive. The defendants then appealed to the circuit court, where, during the trial of the case, they tendered into court the unpaid purchase-money. That court then instructed the jury to find for the defendants, and adjudged the costs that accrued after the first tender against the plaintiff. The plaintiff appealed.

Judgment affirmed.

Slack & Longstreet, for the appellant.

The question in replevin is the right to immediate possession. If Miller had the best claim to the mule he could not hold it under this proceeding, because LeFlore was in the rightful and peaceable possession of the mule, and refused to surrender it to Guy, the trustee. It was then upon Guy or Miller to resort to law for the assertion of their claim to the mule. We presume this proposition needs no authority to bear it out--that one who has a superior claim to personal property in the peaceable possession of another can't wrongfully take it, but if possession is refused, must resort to replevin or other legal means or remedies to recover.

The mortgage given by Scott was conditional--if Neal & Miller paid LeFlore--and it was upon these conditions that it was given. Having failed to do this, they can't recover upon it. One who is forced to make advances to protect himself, as LeFlore was, is entitled to be first paid out of the crop, notwithstanding the deed in trust to the party first undertaking to furnish supplies, etc. Isadore Strauss, Trustee, v. Henry F. Bailey, 58 Miss. 131.

Scott never had the legal title to convey. The mule was to be his upon his paying purchase-money in full. To protect the common interest of all concerned, LeFlore made advances to Scott of some one hundred or more dollars after the failure of Neal &amp Miller in 1885. If Neal & Miller had any...