McMahon v. Sloan

• Decision Date: 01 July 1849
• Citation: 12 Pa. 229
• Parties: McMAHON v. SLOAN.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 229

12 Pa. 229

McMAHON v. SLOAN.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

IN error from the Common Pleas of Butler.

Purviance and Sullivan, for plaintiff in error.—The claim of title in the son and the disclaimer by the father would confer title on the son, at least so far as third persons are concerned, more especially when coupled with the declarations of the father. In Clemson v. Davidson, 5 Binn. 398, it is said that purchasers are protected if they buy from one who has long been in possession, exercising acts of ownership; and the same rule is laid down in 1 Stor. Eq. 414. This was reversed by the Court requiring us to show that we were induced to buy in consequence of the declarations of the father.

Smith, contrà.—This was the case of a mere loan, for the declarations never reaching the defendant, may be laid aside but as evidence of ownership, which is settled by the verdict. That no title can be acquired by a purchase from such a party, is settled in this State: 1 Yeat. 478; 2 Ib. 347; 5 S. & R. 130; 8 Ib. 500: also in New York, 20 Wend. 267; 4 Ib. 474.

BELL, J.

It is said to be a fundamental principle of our law of personal property, that no man can be divested of it without his own consent; and consequently, even an honest purchaser, under a defective title, cannot resist the claim of the true proprietor. The maxim that "No one can transfer to another a better title than he has himself" obtains, in the civil as well as the common law: Pothier, Traité du Contrat du Vente, 1, n. 7; Erk. In. 418; and hence it is now recognised everywhere in civilized Europe, for "a sale ex vi termini imports nothing more than that a bonâ fide purchaser succeeds only to the rights of the vendor:" 2 Kent's Com. 324; Saltus v. Everett, 20 Wend. 275. In England, an exception is acknowledged in favour of sales effected in market overt; but, as in this country we have not adopted their notion of markets overt, every transfer of chattels is with us to be considered in reference to the general law I have stated. This doctrine was anxiously discussed and considered in the leading case of Lickbarrow v. Mason, by the various Courts through which it passed: 2 T. R. 63; 2 H. Black. 11; 5 T. R. 367; and though it was finally established as an exception, under the qualified negotiability of bills of lading, the concession was everywhere made that, in the words of Lord Loughborough, "mere possession, without a just title, gives no property, and the person to whom such possession is transferred by delivery must take the hazard of the title of its author." In accordance with this principle, it was held in Wilkinson v. King, 2 Camp. 335, and Loestman v. Mackin, 2 Stark. R. 512, that if a bailee for a special purpose, pass the goods to another in contravention of that purpose, the true owner may assert his property by action, though the transfer be a bonâ fide purchase, without notice. Going perhaps a step further, it was held in Hoare v. Patrick, 2 T. R. 376, that a pledge of plate, by one having a life interest therein, did not, after the death of the pledgor, bind the remainder-man, who was permitted to recover the goods pawned without repayment of the money advanced upon them by the pawnee, though the latter had no notice of the settlement. The case was thought to be a hard one, but the Court observed, "This point is clearly settled, and the law must remain as it is, until the legislature think fit to provide that the possession of such chattels is proof of ownership." This protection of the true owner was, perhaps, carried still further in Prescott v. Deforest, 16 Johns. R. 159, where it was ruled that a sale under a distress for rent, where no rent was due, passed no property to the purchaser. The adjudications of the same Court furnish other signal instances of the application of this doctrine. Among them may be noticed Williams v. Merle, 11 Wend. 80. In that case the captain of a tow-boat, through mistake, carried from the warehouse of his principal four barrels of pot and pearl ashes, belonging to another. On arriving at his place of destination, he informed the clerk of his principal of the error, and delivered the property to him. The latter, deeming it best for the interest of the owners, caused the ashes to be appraised and sold to the defendant, who purchased as the agent of another. In an action brought about a year after, by the owner, it was held, that, as neither the captain nor the clerk had any property in the ashes, they could convey none to the plaintiff; and as the gist of the action was the disposing of another man's property without his consent, it was of no account to say that they acted under the instructions of another, who himself had no authority. Another instance is found in Ripley v. Galston, 9 Johns. R. 197. The plaintiff had purchased a livery stable, and put it into the hands of A. to carry on the business as his agent. He afterwards purchased a coach which was added to the establishment, and subsequently run as a public carriage in the name of A. The sign of the livery stable bore A.'s name as proprietor, and was advertised as his. The coach was taken in execution by A.'s creditors, and sold to the defendant, and in an action brought by the owner, it was determined that, as A. was the mere agent of the plaintiff, no property in the coach passed by delivery to him, and unless the possession was fraudulent and intended for colourable purposes, it was not liable to the execution of A.'s creditors. The same law obtains in Massachusetts, as is evidenced by Vincent v. Cornell, 13 Pick. 294; and our own case of Vandyke v. Christ, 7 W. & S. 374, very properly confines the doctrine of constructive fraud to sales of chattels, where the vendor retains the possession; and shows that delivery at the time of sale is required, not by the common law, but by a free interpretation of the statutes of 13 and 27 Eliz.; the first of these having been made to avoid collusive transfers of the legal ownership, in protection of the vendor's creditors, and the latter, performing the same office in favour of bonâ fide purchasers. But the statutes and the law deduced from them have no application to bailments of chattels, whether for carriage; for work to be performed upon them; for temporary use under a contract of hiring or by way of loan; or for any other specific purpose, where the object of the parties was not to pass the property in the thing, to the bailee: Lackey v. McDermott, 8 S. & R. 500. In Saltus v. Everett, 20 Wend. 366, a leading case on the subject in New York, which commenced in the Superior Court of the city of New York, passed through the Supreme Court, and was finally determined by the High Court of Errors and Appeals, Chief Justice Jones, of the City Court, propounded as a general rule, the proposition that "A purchaser (from the possessor of chattels) for a fair and valuable consideration, in the usual course of trade, without notice of any conflicting claim or any suspicious circumstances to awaken inquiry or to put him on his guard, will be protected in his purchase, and unaffected by any latent claim." The supposed general rule was the foundation of his decision against the plaintiff, and he enforced it by observing that if the purchaser "has notice of...