Case ID: tenn_12/html/0174-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Peck, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Partee vs. Badget et al.
    
    No right of recaption exists in this State.
    Three years adverse possession of personal property, vests the right of property in the possessor.
    In this case, the ancestor of defendants in error was originally the owner of the slaves in controversy. The plaintiff claimed them by gift from his father, and held adverse possession of them from the year 1821, until the year 1827, when the defendants in error retook them into their possession. This suit was then brought against them, and the jury, under the charge of the court, found a verdict in favor of the defendants in error. Upon which judgment was rendered.
    The court was requested to charge the jury, that if the slaves in question were more than three years in the adverse possession of the plaintiff, the defendants were barred by the act of limitations, and could not recover them by law, and having regained the possession, could not hold them against the plaintiff. The court refused so to charge; but stated to the jury, that the act of limitations only barred the remedy, and not the right, and though the defendants could not recover by suit, yet, if their title was good before it was barred, they had a right of re-caption at any time afterwards, and having got the slaves m their possession after their action was harred, they . . , , . . . , . . .„ / thereby resorted to their first right, and the plaintiff m such case could not he aided hy the statute.”
    
      D. Craighead, for plaintiff in error.
   Peck, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

The question presented by this record, arises upon the charge of the court. The circuitxourt was of opinion that the plaintiff could acquire no right of property in the slaves hy virtue of an adverse possession, sufficient in point of time to form a har under the act of limitations; that the remedy of the party who had the title, was only harred, not his right of property, and consequently the right of recaption existed. In personal actions to enforce exec-utory contracts, the statute of limitations only operates a har upon the remedy; hence a distinct and unequivocal acknowledgment will revive the debt. But, in relation to the title to pei-sonal property, the rule is, and from necessity must he different. In such case the uninterrupted adverse enjoyment for the period prescribed hy the ' statutes, vests the right of property in the possessor, unless prevented hy some of the exceptions in the statute. Without detailing the dangerous consequences to society,* the violence, the prostration of all good order, which would result from the adoption of a contrary doctrine, it is sufficient for us to say, that thewuestion has been settled in this State, in the case of Kteler vs. Miles’, (Martin and Yerger’s Rep.) The decision in that case is amply sustained by the authorities referred to. We are of opinion that the Circuit Court erred in its charge to the jury upon this point, for which error the judgment must he reversed and the cause remanded.

Judgment reversed.