Miller v. Hyde

• Decision Date: 19 June 1894
• Citation: 161 Mass. 472,37 N.E. 760
• Parties: MILLER v. HYDE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

161 Mass. 472

37 N.E. 760

MILLER v. HYDE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

June 19, 1894

This is an action of replevin to recover possession of a horse known as the "Bull." The plaintiff is the widow and administratrix of the estate of Herbert W Miller, late of Boston, Mass. The said Herbert W. Miller was by business a stable keeper, and was also interested in the trotting of horses. On or about July 12, 1890, the said Miller in his lifetime intrusted to one George Bryden, of Hartford, Conn., a blank check to be used in the purchase of the said horse known as the "Bull," and a few days thereafter the said Bryden, as the agent and for the benefit of said Miller, purchased said horse, and paid for it with money obtained on said check. Said horse was kept, in company with other horses also belonging to said Miller, in a barn rented for that purpose by said Miller in Hartford, Conn and there remained until demanded by the plaintiff herein. The said Miller died in Boston, September 14, 1890, and in the following November the plaintiff herein was duly qualified as the administratrix of his estate in Massachusetts, and shortly thereafter, on or about the 13th day of November, 1890, she went to Hartford, and made a demand on said Bryden for said horse, but Bryden refused to deliver the horse, and claimed to own a half interest therein. The affairs of the said Miller were found to be in great confusion, and the plaintiff was without means of her own, and was harassed by lawsuits in Boston, but in due course of time she was appointed administratrix of the estate of said Miller in Hartford county, Conn., by the probate court of said county, and, shortly after, his estate was declared insolvent by said probate court. Meantime, on or about March 31, 1891, the said Bryden sold said horse, the "Bull," as his own property, to Joseph C Davenport, of Hartford, Conn., and Ada L. Hyde, of Brookline Conn., for the sum of $1,500, and gave a bill of sale of said horse to the said Davenport and Hyde, and the said Davenport gave to the said Bryden his check for $1,285, which check was duly paid. In November, 1891, after her appointment as administratrix in said Hartford county, the plaintiff, being a stranger in Connecticut, and being unable to furnish a bond in Connecticut sufficient to enable her to replevin said horse, brought an action for the conversion of said horse against the said Bryden and Joseph C. Davenport, E.A. Hyde and John Shillinglaw, the horse being then in the possession of said three last-named defendants, and said horse was attached in said suit. Said action was brought to trial in the court of common pleas of Hartford county at the March term of 1892, and the court found for plaintiff as against the defendant Bryden in the sum of $1,000, fixing the date of conversion at the time of the demand on Bryden in November, 1890, and in favor of the defendants Hyde, Davenport, and Shillinglaw on the ground that said three last-named defendants did not appear to have anything to do with said horse until some months after said conversion by said Bryden. The defendant Bryden was worthless and without property. Execution against him was taken out on said judgment by the said plaintiff, and placed in the hands of James R. Graham, a deputy sheriff for said Hartford county. After demand on said execution on said Bryden by said sheriff, which demand was not complied with, the said sheriff levied said execution by direction of the plaintiff's attorney on the said horse, the "Bull," and proceeded to advertise said horse for sale at public auction. The said sheriff was in the act of selling said horse on said execution, but before it was sold it was taken from him by John M. Foote, Jr., a deputy sheriff of said county, under a writ of replevin in favor of the said Joseph C. Davenport, which suit of replevin at the time of the bringing of this suit was still pending in said Hartford county, Conn. The said Davenport gave bond in said replevin suit, and took possession of the said horse, the "Bull," and later, in August, 1892, intrusted him to the said E.A. Hyde, who brought the horse to Massachusetts, and entered it in his own name for the races at Mystic Park, in Medford, Mass., and, while said horse was at said Mystic Park, he was replevied by the plaintiff herein under a replevin writ directed to the said Hyde. The judgment entered against said Bryden in favor of the plaintiff as aforesaid has not been satisfied.

COUNSEL

Elder, Wait & Whitman, for plaintiff.

J.H. Morrison, for defendant.

OPINION

BARKER J.

The plaintiff may maintain replevin if she is the owner of the horse, and if she is not estopped from asserting her ownership against the defendant. As administratrix of her husband's estate, she was the owner when she brought trover in Connecticut against Bryden, the bailee who had wrongfully usurped dominion and sold and delivered the horse to Davenport. As the horse was in Connecticut and the action of trover was in the courts of that state, the effect of the suit upon her title would be determined by the law of the forum. But as the law of Connecticut is not stated as an agreed fact, we must apply our own. Whether a plaintiff's title to the chattel is transferred upon the entry in his favor of judgment in trover has not been decided by this court. Assuming that, in early times, title to the chattel was transferred to the defendant upon the entry of judgment for the plaintiff in trover, at present a different doctrine is generally applied, and it is now commonly held that title is not transferred by the entry of judgment, but remains in the plaintiff until he has received actual satisfaction. See Atwater v. Tupper, 45 Conn. 144; Turner v Brock, 6 Heisk. 50; Lovejoy v. Murray, 3 Wall. 1; Ex parte Drake, 5 Ch.Div. 866; Brinsmead v. Harrison, L.R. 7 C.P. 547; 1 Greenl.Ev. § 533, and note. And the law has been commonly so administered by our own trial courts. We think this doctrine better calculated to do justice, and see no reason why we should not hold it to be law. Whenever the title passes, as there has been no sale or gift and no title by prescription or by possession taken upon abandonment by the true owner, the transfer is made by his inferred election to recognize as an absolute ownership the qualified dominion wrongfully assumed by the defendant. The true owner makes no release in terms and no election in terms to relinquish his title; but the election is inferred by the law, to prevent injustice. Formerly this election was inferred when judgment for the plaintiff was entered, because his damages, measured by the value of the chattel and interest, were then authoritatively assessed, and the judgment brought to his aid the power of the court to enforce its collection out of the wrongdoer's estate or by taking his person; and this was deemed enough to insure actual satisfaction. If so, it was just to infer that when he accepted these rights he elected to relinquish to the wrongdoer the full ownership of the chattel. An election was not inferred when the suit was commenced, although the plaintiff then alleged that the defendant had converted the chattel, and although the writ might contain a capias; because, owing to the uncertainties attendant upon the pursuit of remedies by action, it was not just to infer such an election while ultimate satisfaction for the wrong was but problematical. Forms of action are a means of administering justice rather than an end in themselves. When it is seen that the practical result of a form of action is a failure of justice, the courts will make such changes as are necessary to do justice. If the entry of judgment in trover usually gave the judgment creditor but an empty right, it was not just to infer that upon acquiring such a right he relinquished the ownership of the chattel, and the rule that required the inference to be then drawn was properly changed. The ground for inferring such an election was that upon the entry of judgment he acquired an effectual right in lieu of his property, and the doctrine that, without some actual satisfaction, the inference of an election would not be drawn has been shown by experience to be necessary to the administration of justice, and has been generally acted upon, and the modern rule adopted that the plaintiff's title is not transferred by the entry of judgment, but is transferred by actual satisfaction. Trover is but a tentative attempt to obtain justice for a wrong, and, until pursued so far that it has given actual satisfaction, ought not to bar the plaintiff from asserting his title. The present doctrine is consistent with the general principle stated by Lord Ellenborough in Drake v. Mitchell, 3 East, 251, and quoted in Vanuxem v. Burr, 151 Mass. 386, 389, 24 N.E. 773, as approved in Lord v. Bigelow, 124 Mass. 185, that "a judgment recovered in any form of action is still but a security for the original cause of action until it be made productive in satisfaction to the party." Whether the holder of an unsatisfied judgment in trover can, without a fresh taking, maintain replevin against the same defendant, or is restricted to one action against the same person for a single tort, we do not now decide. See Bannett v. Hood, 1 Allen, 47; Trask v. Railroad Co., 2 Allen, 331; Bliss v. Railroad Co. (Mass.) 36 N.E. 65. If he is so restricted, it is not because the ownership of the chattel has been transferred. But the present plaintiff has done more than to take judgment in trover. In her action of trover she caused the horse to be attached as property of Bryden, and, since obtaining judgment, she has caused the horse to be seized in execution on the judgment as his property, and to be kept and offered for sale on the execution until, as it...