Case ID: mass_88/html/0139-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Chapman, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Michael King vs. Warren Green.
    One who has voluntarily made a pledge to secure the payment of an illegal demand against him is not afterwards entitled to reclaim the same without payment of the demand.
    Tort for the conversion of a watch. At the trial in the superior court, before Russell, J., it appeared that the plaintiff, with another man, hired a horse and wagon for one dollar of the defendant’s master, about noon on a Sunday, to drive for two or three hours, not for works of necessity or charity; that he did not return until late in the evening, when the defendant demanded three dollars more; that the plaintiff said he had no money, and the defendant took his watch, and afterwards, upon demand made, before the commencement of this action, refused to give it up. There was a conflict of evidence as to whether the plaintiff voluntarily delivered the watch to the defendant; and the judge instructed the jury that even if the plaintiff did voluntarily deliver it to the defendant as security for the payment of the debt, the defendant would have no lien upon it, because it was given to secure the payment of an illegal contract. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the defendant alleged exceptions.
    
      S. G. Nash, for the defendant.
    
      W. P. Harding, for the plaintiff.
   Chapman, J.

Under the instructions given by the judge, the jury may have found that the plaintiff delivered, the watch to the defendant voluntarily. He seeks to recover it back on the ground that he delivered it as a pledge for the payment of a debt which he was not legally liable to pay, because it was for the use of a horse and wagon which the defendant had let to him to enable him to violate the law for the observance of the Lord’s day. It is true that the law would not enable the defendant to recover such a debt. Way v. Foster, 1 Allen, 408. But neither will it enable the plaintiff to recover back his property given in pledge for the debt, any more than to recover back the money after paying it. In all such cases, the maxim potior est conditio possidentis is applicable. The plaintiff has, at least, as little claim to the aid of the law as the defendant.

Exceptions sustained.