Case ID: mass_7/html/0329-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Thomas Wilson versus Bezaleel Loring.
    Where the highest bidder at a sheriff’s sale refuses to take and pay for the ar tide he has bid off, the sheriff may set it up again, and sell it to the highest bidder on such second attempt.
    Trespass for taking and carrying away a horse, the property of the plaintiff.
    This action came before the Court upon a case stated, containing similar facts with those in the action of Purrington * vs. Loring, immediately preceding. In addi- [ * 393 ] tian to those facts, it was also agreed, in the present case, that the defendant sold the horse at auction, but the purchaser, discovering some blemish which he supposed would injure the horse, requested to be released. To this the defendant, after some resistance, at length consented ; and again putting up the horse for sale, he was bid off to another person for a smaller sum than was bid on the first attempt to sell him. It was not more than twenty minutes from the time of the first sale, until he was put up the second time, and the same persons were present during the whole transaction. Longfellow for the plaintiff.
    
      E. Whitman for the defendant.
   By the Court.

Although the decision of the action of Purrmgton against this same defendant also determines this, and it is therefore unnecessary to give an opinion as to the effect of the additional facts in this case, yet it may not be useless to observe, that where a highest bidder at a sheriff’s sale refuses to take and pay for the article he has bid off, the officer has authority to set up the article again at auction, and to sell it to the highest bidder upon such second attempt. If it were not so, officers would be subjected to the most mischievous consequences.

Defendant defaulted.