Case ID: va_46/html/0055-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Richmond.
    Robinson’s ex'ors v. Day.
    1. A party comes into equity, and states in her bill that she is the only child and distributee of her mother, and as such is entitled to certain slaves then in the possession of a third person who is about to remove from the Commonwealth and take the slaves with him, before she can qualify on her mother’s estate; and asks that he may he restrained from taking the slaves out of the State. The injunction is granted, and the defendant appears and files a plea, in which he admits he has the slaves in his possession, and he claims them as his own; but he denies that he is about to remove from the State, or to remove the slaves; and he objects to the jurisdiction of the Court. Pending this suit, the plaintiff dies without children, and then third persons file a bill in the same Court, against the adm’r of the first plaintiff, and the defendant, setting up a claim to the slaves, under the will of another person, who had bequeathed the mother of the slaves to the plaintiff in the first suit for life, and then on her death without children, to the plaintiffs in the second suit. The defendant who claimed the slaves again appeared and objected to the jurisdiction of the Court. Held : The Court has jurisdiction of the case.
    
      2. A cause is ready for a decision as to the substantial parties, at a regular term of the Court. At a following intermediate term, the plaintiff amends his bill to make a formal party, who comes in and files his answer at the same term, and consents that the cause may come on to be heard. The Court may hear the cause at the intermediate term, though it is objected to by the substan tial defendant, as to whom it was ready at the preceding regular term.
    
      Catharine Day applied to a Judge of the General Court to enjoin Abner Robinson from removing from the State a negro woman Maria and her five children, who the plaintiff claimed to be her property. In her-bill she alleged that she was the only child of Elizabeth N. Page deceased, to whom the said slaves belonged ; and that she, as the only child of said Elizabeth, was entitled to them. That she intended to qualify as administratrix of said Elizabeth N. Page, as soon as the Court sat, by which administration could be granted. That a certain George O. Day, the putative father of the plaintiff, had purchased Maria in 1810, then a small girl, and gave her to the said Elizabeth N. Page, who took possession of her and held her until the death of George O. Day, in 1811. That the said Maria and her children, as they were born, remained in possession of said Elizabeth until her death. That since her death, Abner Robinson had taken possession of said slaves and claimed them as his own. That he had already removed one of the said slaves, and was about to remove himself out of the Commonwealth; and plaintiff feared he would remove the other slaves. She therefore prayed for an injunction to restrain him from removing said slaves out of the Commonwealth, and that he might be compelled to deliver them to the plaintiff.
    The injunction was granted, and the sheriff was directed to take possession of the slaves, unless the defendant should give security in the penalty of 3500 dollars, with condition to have the slaves forthcoming, to abide the future order of the Court.
    
      Robinson appeared, and put in a plea and answer. In his plea, he admitted he had possession of the slaves, whom he claimed as his own; but he denied that he had any intention to remove out of the Commonwealth, or to remove the slaves; and he objected to the jurisdiction of the Court, on the ground that the plaintiff had a plain remedy at law.
    In his answer, he alleged that he purchased the slave Maria from Elizabeth N. Page, when she was but a girl of seven or eight years old; and he filed with his answer a paper executed by the said Elizabeth shortly before her death, by which she declared that Maria and her children were the property of Robinson.
    
    Pending the cause the plaintiff died, and it was revived in the name of Samuel Pleasants, high sheriff of the county of Henrico, and as such administrator of Catharine Day.
    
    After the death of Catharine Day, Samuel Day and Richard Day Taylor, filed their bill in the same Court against Pleasants, as the administrator of said Catharine, and Abner Robinson, in which they alleged that George O. Day died in 1813, possessed, among other things, of the slave Maria. That by his will, which was duly admitted to record in the Hustings Court of the City of Richmond, he bequeathed to his natural daughter Catharine Day, the slave Maria and her increase for her life, and at her death, to her children, if gjje ka(j any at ker . hut if she died without children living at her death, then he gave the said slave and her increase to the plaintiffs. And he further provided that until the said Catharine arrived at the age of twenty-one years, or married, Elizabeth N. Page was to have the use of said slave to aid her to raise and educate the said Catharine. That said Catharine married, but died in 1837, without leaving children at her death. And charging that Robinson had possession of the slaves, claiming them as his own, they asked that he might be restrained from removing them out of the Commonwealth, and for general relief.
    
      Robinson answered the bill, calling for proof of all ■the facts alleged in the bill in relation to the title of the plaintiffs. He admitted he had a slave called Maria and her children in his possession. Maria, he alleged, he had bought more than twenty years before the filing of the plaintiffs’ bill, when she was a child in the possession of Elizabeth N. Page, and had held her as his own property ever since ; and that he had held her children as his own since their birth. He insisted that having held adversary possession of these slaves for more than five years, by the laws of Virginia his title to them was thereby made perfect. He denied that he had any intention to remove them from the Commonwealth; arid objected to the jurisdiction of the Court.
    The will of George O. Day very clearly gives the slave Maria and her increase to the plaintiffs, upon the death of Catharine Day without children living at her death; and the proofs establish that the Maria in the possession of Robinson, was purchased by George O. Day, and put into the possession of Elizabeth N. Page; and that Catharine died without children.
    
      It appears that soon after the death of George O. Day, Robinson formed an intimacy with Elizabeth N. Page, and when in Richmond stayed at her house; and when there controlled the household. And before the death of Elizabeth N. Page in 1834, she executed a paper in which she states, “ that Maria and her children are the said Robinson's legal property, he having loaned me 100 dollars to redeem her when under a deed of trust, then only seven or eight years old, and has been at all the expense of raising her and her children.”
    At an intermediate term of the Court, the plaintiffs in the second suit were allowed to amend their bill and make the adm’r, with the will annexed, of George O. Day, and the adm’r of Elizabeth N. Page, parties, who filed their answers at once: And then the causes were brought on to be heard by the consent of these parties, though the hearing of the causes was then objected to by Robinson; and the Court overruled the plea of the defendant in the first case, but dismissed the bill; and being of opinion that the plaintiffs in the second suit were entitled to the slaves under the will of George O. Day, and that Elizabeth N. Page had no right to sell or mortgage the said slaves to the defendant Abner Robinson, decreed that the sheriff of any county or the sergeant of any corporation in the Commonwealth, in which the said slaves or any of them might be found, should take them and deliver them to the plaintiffs or their authorized agent: That Robinson should render, before a commissioner of the Court, an account of the said slaves since the death of Catharine Day: And if Robinson had sold the said slaves, or any of them, out of the Commonwealth, so that possession thereof could not be delivered, that the commissioner should enquire into the value thereof. From this decree, Robinson applied to this Court for an appeal, which was allowed. This appeal was, upon his death, revived in the name of his executors.
    
      
      Lyons, for the appellant, insisted:
    1st. That a Court of Equity had no jurisdiction of the case: And he referred to Park's adm'r, &c. v. Rucker, 5 Leigh 149; Hardin v. Hardin's ex'or, 2 Leigh 572; Armstrong v. Huntons, 1 Rob. R. 323; Sheppards v. Turpin, 3 Gratt. 373.
    2d. That the Court had no authority to hear the cause at the intermediate term, the bill having been then amended to bring in new parties; and the cause, therefore, not having been ready for a hearing at the preceding regular term. Sup. Rev. Code, p. 157, § 60.
    
      Daniel and Brooke, for the appellees,
    on the question of jurisdiction, referred to West v. Belches, 5 Munf. 187; 2 Story’s Equ. Jur. 176; Story’s Equ. Pl. § 350.
    On the second question, they insisted that the cause having been ready at the preceding regular term as to the substantial parties, and the other parties consenting, it was proper to try it at the intermediate term: and that in fact the new parties were not necessary parties, but were brought in by the direction of the Court.
   By the Court.

The decree is affirmed.