Case ID: miss_17/html/0201-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Clayton", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Daniel Thomas vs. The Grand Gulf Bank.
    A conveyance of slaves or other personalty, absolute upon its face, and free from any trust, condition or reservation, need not, by the laws of this state, be recorded.
    If, therefore, such a conveyance be recorded, a certified copy from the record thereof will not be evidence, under the statute which makes certified copies from the records of deeds evidence, without producing or accounting for the original. The acknowledgment before a justice, and the record of such a conveyance are without warrant or authority, and amount to nothing upon the point of its admissibility as testimony. Such certified copy, therefore, will not be evidence without proof of the execution of the original, and accounting for its absence.
    In error from the circuit court of Hinds county • Hon. John H. Rollins, judge.
    In July, 1840, the Grand Gulf Bank sued Daniel Thomas in an action of trespass for taking away and converting a negro man of the plaintiffs, named Sterling.
    The defendant pleaded, 1. Not guilty. 2. That he was sheriff of Hinds county, and that he levied upon and sold said slave by virtue of an execution which emanated from a judgment recovered at the May Term, 1838, of the circuit court of Copiah county, recovered by Samuel B. Wiggins against Isaac W. Lester; that the execution came to his hands on January 20, 1840, was levied 28th February, 1840, on said negro, as the property of Lester. The plea further avers, that he took a good indemnifying bond from Wiggins, which he returned into the office of the clerk of the circuit court of Copiah county. 3. The third plea avers that he was sheriff, &c. and that he levied upon said slave to satisfy said judgment against Lester — that said slave was the property, &c. of Lester. The plaintiff took issue on the pleas, and the case was submitted to a jury at special term of Hinds circuit court, in March, 1844; and the jury found for the plaintiff.
    A bill of exceptions was signed ; the only point of which that it is deemed necessary to notice is the following :
    The plaintiff, without accounting for the absence of the original, or laying any ground for its introduction, offered a copy of a deed from Isaac W. Lester to Ricks B. Wiggins, dated July 10, 1837, and certificate of acknowledgment thereof before a justice of the peace of Copiah county, (where the parties resided), dated 14th July, 1837, together with these words as a part of the matter copied: i‘ Filed 9th November, 183S, and recorded December 27, 1838.” The copy was authenticated by the certificate of the probate clerk of Copiah county, of date July 17, 1841. By this deed, Lester conveyed in fee simple eight parcels of land in said county, and seven negroes, Sterling among the number. To the admission of said copy as evidence the defendant objected, but his objection was overruled. He prosecutes this writ of error.
    Hutchinson, for plaintiff in error.
    Thomas objected to the copy as evidence, because no ground was laid accounting for the absence of the original. That was the best evidence. It could not be known but that it was in the possession of the bank. Did R. B. Wiggins retain the deed because of his own warranty to his vendee 7 It does not appear that he made such warranty. Then, certainly, in the absence of any ground whatever for the introduction of the copy, as secondary evidence, it was error to admit it. The rule is familiar to the court. The effect of the deed is involved in a subsequent exception.
    
      Charles Scott, for defendants in error.
    The court below did not err in admitting as evidence, the copy ■of the deed from Isaac W. Lester to R. B. Wiggins.
    The first section of the act of the 13th of May, 1837, authorized copies of all recorded deeds, conveyances, &c. duly certified to be used as evidence. See How. & Hutch. 610. The act of 1840 repealed this first and second sections of the above act. Pamphlet Acts, 1840, p. 79. But the act of 1844 which took effect from the date of its passage, repealed the act of 1840, and revived the 1st and 2d sections of the act of 1837.
    
      A. L. Dabney, on same side.
    The first exception is to the admission of an authenticated copy of a deed, without accounting for the absence of the original.
    This cause was tried on the 18th of March, 1844. The act of February, 1844, (Pamphlet, p. 230) was in force, and the copy was therefore admissible. 
    
   Mr. Justice Clayton

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action of trespass brought by the Grand Gulf Bank against the plaintiff in error, for taking and converting a negro man named Sterling. The defendant pleaded in justification, that as sheriff of Hinds county, he had seized the slave in execution, under a judgment rendered in May, 1838, against Isaac W* Lester.

0'n the trial the plaintiff offered in evidence a copy of a deed from Lester to Ricks B. Wiggins, for certain lands and slaves including the one in controversy, bearing date in July, 1837, and filed for record in November, 1838. The defendant objected to the reading of the copy, but the objection was overruled by the court.

The argument in support of this action of the court is not consistent in this, that it insists the copy was properly admitted by virtue of the statute making copies of deeds required to be registered, evidence in like manner as the originals; and also insists, in order to obviate the effect of failure to record in due time, that it was unnecessary to record the deed at all, so far as it relates to the slaves. We agree with the counsel that a conveyance of slaves or other personalty, absolute upon its face, and free from any trust, condition or reservation, need not, by the laws of this state be recorded. As a necessary consequence, however, of this position, a copy without accounting for the absence of the original, and without proof of its due execution, was not admissible testimony. The recording, and the certificate of acknowledgment before a justice of the peace, were without warrant or authority, and amount to nothing, upon the point of their admissibility as testimony.

For this reason the judgment must be reversed, and it hence becomes unnecessary to examine the other errors assigned. An amendment of the pleadings may obviate one of them at least.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.