Case ID: mass_64/html/0045-01.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

James Duffy vs. Patrick Gorman.
    An action will not lie for goods delivered by the plaintiff to a third person to sell contrary to law, and by him deposited with the defendant as a pledge for his own debt.
    This was an action of trover, tried before Hoar, J. in the court of common pleas. It appeared that one Owen Donahoe, a peddler, bought some ready-made clothing of the defendant, and left the goods, which were the subject of this action in pledge, as security for the payment of the price of the clothing.
    There was also evidence of the plaintiff tending to show that Donahoe had received the goods in controversy of the plaintiff, two or three months before, on consignment, as the agent or factor of the plaintiff; said Donahoe intending to peddle said goods in this commonwealth without a license, contrary to law, and with the knowledge of the plaintiff that be was about to sell them thus unlawfully.
    
      The judge instructed the jury that if Donahoe took the goods to peddle without a license, contrary to law, and the plaintiff delivered these goods to him to be thus disposed of in violation of law, he could not maintain this action by proof that Donahoe had disposed of them in a manner different from the one he had intended.
    The jury returned a verdict for the defendant, and the plaintiff excepted to the foregoing instructions.
    
      A. W. Stockwell, for the plaintiff.
    
      W. G. Bates, for the defendant.
   By the Court.

As the plaintiff can claim only through his own illegal contract with Donahoe, which the law will not allow, this action cannot be maintained.

Exceptions overruled.