Case ID: tenn_17/html/0313-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Reese, J,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Smith’s Executors vs. Mabry.
    Where one of several executors contracted to sell slaves, the property of their testator, the purchaser has only an equitable right. And where another of the executors sold and delivered the same slaves to another person, who had full knowledge of the previous sale, the latter sale vested the legal title/ which in a court of law must prevail.
    The general rule, that in the assignment of choses in action, &c. a court of law will protect the equitable interest of the assignee, and not permit him, in whom the legal right is, to injure by his act the equitable owner, has no application to such a case.
    This is an action of detinue to recover from the defendant several negro slaves, brought by William Smith and Miller Smith, executors of the will and testament of John Smith deceased-, for the use of Absalom K. Simington, W. Alexander and James Campbell.
    It appears from tbe proof in the cause, that after these ne-groes were in the possession of Mabry under a purchase from one Stewart, William Smith, one of the executors, sold the negroes to Simington, Campbell and Alexander, tliat is, as explained by him, a moiety of the entire interest in them, to’ Wilson, the intestate of Alexander, at one time, and at another time the remaining moiety to Simington and Campbell. This executor lived in North Carolina. The legal title, however, in the slaves did not pass from the executors to the persons named. Before the institution' of this suit,- Miller Smith, the other plaintiff and executor, and who resides in ibis state, conveyed to the defendant the negroes in question, by a bill of sale duly exequted, and which was duly registered, so as to pass the legal title to the defendant. The consideration paid by Mabry for the negroes to Miller Smith, was very inconsiderable, and Smith and Mabry at the time of their contract, knew of the contracts between William Smith and the other persons named, and for these reasons and others assigned before tbe circuit court upon the trial of the cause, it was insisted by the counsel for the plaintiff, that the bill of sale from Miller Smith to the defendant could not be set up to defeat the plaintiff’s right to recover. But the court charged the jury, that inasmuch as no legal title passed by the sale of William Smith, of the negroes to the persons for whose use this action is brought, their equitable interest could not be irH 'quired into in this action, and as the legal title remained in the executors, the bill of sale from William Smith, one of the executors to Mabry, passed the legal title to him, and therefore the plaintiffs were not entitled to recover in this action.
    The jury returned a verdict for the defendant. A new trial was moved for and refused by the circuit court, and an appeal in the nature of a writ of error prosecuted to this court.
    
      John Williams, for plaintiff in error’.
    JVo person appeared for defendant.
   Reese, J,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Whether the charge of the circuit court be correct, is the only question before us. And we think it is.

In a court of law it would never, occur to counsel to inquire into the equitable interest in land of any one. The equitable right constitutes no proper subject for investigation in the legal forum. And if there be any action touching a personal chattel, which more than all others, requires the inquiry to be confined to the legal title, it is the action of detinue for slaves, in which the right ol a plaintiff to recover depends upon legal title. Courts indeed, in some cases of choses in action where the evidences of claim have been sold and delivered to another, will protect the equitable interest of such assignee by delivery when the suit has been brought for his use. But to extend this to all forms of action, and particularly to specific property sought to be specifically recovered, would obscure or obliterate the well defined distinctions between the jurisdiction of a court of law and a court of chancery. What was the court in effect called on to do?

1. To set aside the bill of sale from Miller Smith to Ma-bry, on the ground of fraudulent collusion and inadequacy of price.

2. To execute the contract between the plaintiff, William Smith, and the equitable claimants, by delivering to them the negroes to be recovered.

This coarse of action falls within the sphere of our chancery courts. That the circuit judge was correct in his charge, we think clear of all doubt. The act of Assembly referred to, in cases where a suit may be properly brought in the name of one person for the use of another, subjects the latter to costs, but it does not multiply the cases in which this may be done, nor in any manner except as to costs, extend the powers of the court. We affirm the judgment.

Judgment affirmed.