Lyle v. Barker

• Decision Date: 29 March 1813
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
• Parties: LYLE v. BARKER, Sheriff, & c. and others.

5 Binn. 457

LYLE v. BARKER, Sheriff, & c. and others.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

March 29, 1813

The pawnee of goods may maintain trespass against a stranger who takes them away, and recover the whole value in damages although they were pledged for less. He is answerable for the excess to the person who has the general property.

The sheriff is not, by a domestic attachment, invested with the rights of the defendant, in property that has been pledged by him. He is quoad hoc a stranger, and liable in damages to the same extent in case of a trespass.

THIS was an action of trespass vi et armis, for breaking and entering the close of the plaintiff, and taking away twenty-nine pipes of Madeira wine. The defendants pleaded not guilty, and a special justification under a writ of domestic attachment, at the suit of Alexander Burton against Robert Morris, junior, which was executed by Barker as sheriff, and the other defendants as his assistants.

Upon the trial of the cause, which took place before the Chief Justice at a Nisi Prius in February last it was in evidence that Robert Morris, junior, in whom the general property of the wine was, was indebted to the plaintiff in the sum of 14,800 dollars, upon eleven promisory notes, drawn in the spring and summer of 1806, at 60 and 90 days. The plaintiff claimed a special property in the wines, under an asserted bailment by Morris, as a security for this debt. The sheriff took them out of his possession on the 12th of August 1806, in virtue of a domestic attachment against Morris, by whose testimony it appeared, that the wine was pledged to the plaintiff by a written agreement, (not produced on the trial) till certain notes of Morris should be paid; that these notes were less in amount than the first cost of the wine; and that there were afterwards other notes of Morris in the hands of the plaintiff, for which the wines were not pledged.

It was upon this evidence, that the only point now material arose the defendant's counsel contending that the plaintiff could recover no more in damages, than the amount for which the wines were pledged, which it was his duty to shew precisely; but the Chief Justice in his charge instructed the jury, that if they were satisfied the plaintiff had a special property in the wines, they might give damages to the full value, and interest from the time they were taken away. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff 8821 dollars 87 cents damages, being the full value of the wines according to the plaintiff's estimate, with interest from the time of the attachment to the day in bank, and including one hundred dollars for the trespass. The defendant moved for a new trial upon the ground of misdirection.

Wallace and Tilghman for the defendant, contended, that the direction was wrong. The measure of the plaintiff's damages, was the injury sustained, which could not exceed the amount for which the wines were pledged, and the damage done by breaking his close. Where goods are taken from a bailee in consequence of his own negligence, he is answerable over, and in such case there may be a colour for giving him the full value. But they were taken here by process of law, and he is not chargeable over. His right to damages is therefore only commensurate with his personal loss, which it was incumbent upon him to shew, without putting the burden of proof upon us. What would he have recovered, had the trespass been committed by Morris? Certainly no more than the sum secured. The...