Stiles v. Davis & Barton

1. Goods seized by a sheriff under an attachment are in the custody of the law. 2. Where the goods are attached in the hands of a common carrier, to whom they have been delivered for transportation, the carrier is not justified in giving them up to the consignee while the proceeding in attachment is pending. 3. This rule holds even where the goods have been attached for the debt of a third person, and under a proceeding to which the employer of the carrier is not a party. i. The right of the sheriff to hold them is a question of law to be determined by-the court having jurisdiction of the attachment suit, and not by the will of either the carrier or his employer. 5. If the consignee of the goods can show a title in himself, his remedy is not against the carrier, but against the officer who has, wrongfully seized them, or against the plaintiff in the attachment suit, if he directed the seizure.

Writ of error to the District Court of the United States for the northern district of Illinois. Solomon Davis and Joseph Barton brought trover in the Circuit Court of the United States for the northern district of Illinois, against Edmund GL Stiles, for twelve boxes, one trunk, and one bale containing dry goods, of the value of four thousand dollars. On the trial it was proved that Stiles, who was a common carrier, had by his agents, Scofield and Curtis, received the goods in question from Benjamin Cooley, attorney for Davis & Barton, (the plaintiffs,) to be forwarded to Ilion, New York, at two dollars and fifty cents per cwt., subject to the order of the plaintiffs, upon the surrender of the receipt and payment of charges. It appeared on the trial that they purchased the goods, or took an assignment of them, from a bankrupt firm in Janesville, (composed of D. W. C. Davis, who was a son of one;plaintiff, and Davies A, Barton, a son of the other,) and made the contract above mentioned with the defendant for carrying them to Ilion, New York, the place of the plaintiff’s own residence. The receipt is dated at Janesville, on the 2d of November, 1857. The goods arrived in Chicago on the next day, and were received by the defendant (Stiles) at his pi’oper place of business, whence they were to be despatched by him to the place of their ultimate destination. But before they were forwarded, Andrew Cameron and others,’creditors, or claiming to be creditors of the junior Davis and Barton, attached the goods in thé hands of Stiles, the transporter. Shortly before this suit was brought, (the precipe is dated on the 1.6th of November, 1857,) Q-. 'W’. .Davenport, attorney of the plaintiffs,i presented the receipt to the defendant, and. demanded the goods. The defendant said they had been attached, and declined to give them up until the suit in which the process issued should be decided; the goods, he said, were in his possession in a warehouse or stored ; he asserted no personal interest in them, but claimed that he was protected by the garnishee process. The counsel of the defendant requested the court to instruct the jury: 1. That a common carrier could not be guilty of conversion by a qualified refusal when he claimed no interest in the goods himself, and he had shown reasonabl'e grounds of dispute as to the title. 2. That a-qualified refusal by the defendant, after he was garnisheed, he only claiming to hold them to await the decision of the title, when there was reasonable ground of dispute as to the title, was no conversion. The court refused to give these instructions; but said: 1. That the'jury were to determine from the evidence whether there- had been a conversion. As a general rule, if the right of property was in the plaintiffs, a demand on the defendant, and a refusal by him to deliver up property in his possession, wmre circumstances from which the jury might infer a conversion, open, of course, to explanation. 2. That if the plaintiffs were the owners of the goods, and they were delivered by the plaintiffs, or their agent, to the defendants, ánd received by him or his agents to be transported for the plaintiffs to their residence in New York, then the defendant was liable under and according to the terms of the contract. ' And .if he did not so trans,port them or comply with his contract, the plaintiffs had the right to call on him to deliver up to them' the goods; and if upon such demand he refused, it was for the jury to say whether; it constituted, under the circumstances of this case, a conversion. 3. That in the contingency contemplated by the last, preceding instruction, if the defendant -declined to; returp or surrender the goods to the plaintiffs, it was to be considered at his own risk dr peril. 4. That any proceedings in the State court to which the plaintiffs were not parties,' and of which they had no notice, did not bind them or their property. 5. The court left it to the jury to say whether there .was any connivance or collusion between the attaching creditors and the defendant; and if there was, then the defendant could not rely upon those proceedings as an excuse for not delivering'up the goods. The judge added, that though the attachment was not a bar to the action, the jury might consider that fact as a circumstance in determining whether there was a conversion or not.- The jury found for the plaintiff $3,041 14. The court gave judgment on the verdict, and the defendant sued out this writ of error.