Case ID: nj-eq_98/html/0737-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Pee Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William A. Woodbury, appellant, v. C. Palmer Woodbury et al., respondents.
    [Decided October 19th, 1925.]
    On appeal from a decree of the court of chancery advised by Yice-Chancellor Church, who delivered the following opinion orally:
    “The only question that I have to decide now is to whom the shares of the Distributors Company’s stock belong. They evidently were turned over by Mr. William A. Woodbury to C. Palmer Woodbury, and they remained in Mr. Palmer Woodbury’s safe until some time, when he hypothecated them to an innocent third party for value for a loan. On the one hand, there is merely the statement of Mr. William Wood-bury that he deposited them for safekeeping in Mr. Palmer Woodburjr’s safe deposit box. On the other hand, it was Mr. Palmer Woodbury who says that they were given as part of the transaction involving the one thousand shares of the Woodbury Company. This is corroborated, perhaps, not definitely, but in some measure, by the exhibits in Mr. William A. Woodbury’s handwriting that have been received in evidence, but, especially, we have the testimony of Mr. Chittenden, who is, and has been for years, a prominent member of the Yew York bar, and Avhose veracity is beyond question. He says that Mr. William A. Woodbury admitted to him that these distributors’ shares were part of the Wood-bury Company transaction. I think that the mere statement of Mr. William A. Woodbury is not sufficient, in the face of the other evidence, to justify me in requiring that this stock should be returned to Mr. William A. Woodbury as his property, and I will therefore deny that prayer. If counsel will prepare a decree in accordance with the findings that have been made this morning, I will advise it.”
    
      Mr. Absalom P. Bachman, for the appellant.
    
      Messrs. Cohn £ Cohn, for the respondents.
   Pee Curiam.

The decree appealed from will be affirmed, for the reasons stated in the opinion filed in the court below by Vice-Chancellor Church.

For affirmance — The Chief-Justice, Trenchakd, Parker, Minturn, Katjsch, Black, Katzenbaoh, Campbell, Lloyd, Gardner, Van Buskieic, McGlennon, Kays, JJ. 13.

For reversal — White, J. 1.