Simons v. Lovell

• Citation: 54 Tenn. 510
• Parties: NICHOLAS SIMONS v. W. A. LOVELL.
• Decision Date: 14 February 1872
• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee

54 Tenn. 510

NICHOLAS SIMONS

v.W. A. LOVELL.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Feb. 14, 1872.

FROM SUMNER.

From the Circuit Court, June Term, 1871. JAS. E. RICE, J.

BENNETT & SEAY for plaintiff.

The sole question is whether plaintiff is, within the meaning of the Act of 1870-71, c. 71, s. 3, “engaged in agriculture.” Webster's Dictionary: “AGRICULTURE. n. (Lat. ager, a field, and cultura, cultivation. See ACRE and CULTURE.) In a general sense, the cultivation of the ground for the purpose of producing vegetables and fruits for the use of man and beast; or the art of preparing the soil, sowing and planting seeds, dressing the plants, and removing the crops. In this sense, the word includes gardening or horticulture, and also the raising and feeding cattle or stock. But in a more common and appropriate sense, it is used to signify that species of cultivation which is intended to raise grain and other field crops for man and beast. It is equivalent to husbandry.”

Plaintiff was engaged in cultivating a field “for the purpose of producing vegetables and fruits for the use of man,” etc. Shall we deny him the appellation of an agriculturist because his field was small? This view would deprive of the benefit of the exemption laws the very class they were meant to protect.

Exemption laws are liberally construed. In Richardson v. Duncan, 2 Heis., 220, the Court made “horse” embrace “ass;” in this following Webster, whose definition in the present case include plaintiff.

S. F. WILSON and M. S. ELKIN for defendant:

If plaintiff is an agriculturist, it would be hard to say who in this county is not. He earned his living as a butcher and day laborer, eking it out by raising some vegetables on his lot. Is every lawyer, doctor, or mechanic, who produces his own cabbages, turnips, etc., entitled, as being “engaged in agriculture,” to the benefit of the exemption laws framed for that class of citizens?

The party must till the ground as his main avocation. In State v. Smith, 5 Hum., 394, defendant, who kept a boarding school, but constantly supplied some eighty-seven pupils and teachers with goods, shoes, books, etc., was held not to be a “merchant.” The Court said, p. 396: “It seems, the business of buying and selling should be the pursuit and avocation of a party by which he makes his living in order that he shall be regarded as a merchant.”

Similarly here. Tilling the ground must be the party's substantive business to make him an agriculturist.

As to the definition from Webster, plaintiff clearly is not “engaged in agriculture” within what is stated to be the “more common and appropriate sense” of the word. And even if he were, questions of statutory construction are not philological questions, but have reference to the meaning and intention of the Legislature, whose use of language is not supposed to be always in nice and accurate accord with critical standards. In 2 Heis., 220, justice required that the Court should see a “horse” in an “ass,” but here it as imperatively exacts that the Court shall not behold in plaintiff an agriculturist.

SNEED, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

The defendant, as Sheriff of Sumner county, levied an execution upon five head of sheep as the property of the plaintiff, the execution debtor. The plaintiff brought his action of replevin, and claims the property under the exemption laws. The case is before us by appeal in error from the judgment of the Circuit Court of Sumner county upon an agreed state of facts without the intervention of a jury. The case agreed is as follows: “The plaintiff lives within the corporate limits of the town of Gallatin. He owns in said town a lot of ground of one acre, upon which he lives. He cultivates a garden upon said lot, in which he produces the usual vegetables raised in a garden, including cabbages, potatoes, and ‘roasting ears' of corn. He is the head of a family; has a wife and eight children. He has lived in said town six years, and since his said residence has been engaged in the business of butchering, working as a day laborer, and cultivating his garden for the support of his family. He bought the five head of sheep on the day they were levied on, to butcher them. The sheep were worth eight dollars. The defendant is Sheriff of the county. That “agriculture’ was proven to mean, in its strict sense, raising cereals and stock; and horticulture, vegetables. That the definition given by Webster, in his Unabridged Dictionary of ‘agriculture’ taken altogether, is correct. The plaintiff raised some grass in his garden with which to feed his cow, and the portion this year in grass would not yield one hundred pounds of hay.”

Upon this state of facts, the Circuit Court adjudged the plaintiff to be a butcher by trade, and not an agriculturist in the sense of the exemption laws.

The exemption laws of this State were intended as a protection to honest poverty--to secure to the indigent citizen a frugal maintenance for his family. They have been construed by the courts with...