Case ID: va_19/html/0522-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "JUDGE) ROANE", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Baird v. Bland and Others.
    Decided March 19th, 1817.
    1. Slaves — Purchase by One with Notice of Better Title — Liability for Interest on Hires. — When a person, who bought a Slave, with lawful notice of a better title, is decreed to deliver him, and pay profits; Interest ought to be charged against him upon the hires, actually received by him from other persons, from the dates of his receipts; but not upon the profits of such Slave, while in his own possession without being hired; the same being unliquidated and merely conjectural sums, and which he was in no default in not paying.
    
      After the affirmance, by this Court, (see 3 Munf. 578,) of Chancellor Wythes’s interlocutory Decree, in the suit of Bland and others v. Baird and others, by which Baird was directed to deliver to the plaintiffs the slave Will, first named in the Bill, and account for his profits; the cause being remanded to the Superior Court of Chancery for the Richmond District, an Account was taken, by a Commissioner, of the profits of the slave Will, and reported to the Court; to which, the defendant Baird excepted, (among other reasons,) “because he was charged hire for Will during the life of Theodorick Bland,’' (of whom he purchased,) “during whose life his occupation of the said slave was lawful, and because the Commissioner improperly charged him interest on conjectural hire and profits of the said slave.”
    Chancellor Taylor was of opinion, “that the defendant Baird should only be accountable for the profits of the said negro man Will, from the death of the said Theod-orick Bland, the father of the jjiaintiffs, as he had an interest in the said slave for his life; and that, if the said defendant is accountable for interest upon the profits of those years, for which the said Slave was hired out, (as indicated in a like case by the President of the Supreme Court in Whitehorn v. Hines, 1 Munf. 508, J why the defendant should not be accountable for interest, in like manner, for those years, in which he kept the possession of the said Slave, is not discerned.” He therefore decreed accordingly; from which Decree the defendant Baird appealed.
    
      
       Slaves — Interest on Unliquidated Hires. — Interest is not to be allowed upon conjectural and unliquidated hires of slaves; for, until they are ascertained, the party is in no default for not paying. Shields v. Anderson, 3 Leigh 739, 740, citing principal case.
      But an administratrix or other fiduciary, whose duty it is to hire out slaves for the benefit of the cestuis que trust, will be held accountable for interest on their estimated hires. Cross y. Cross, 4 Gratt. 258. Judge Adlen, in delivering the opinion of the court in this case (Cross v. Cross), said (p. 265); “The principle decided in Baird v. Bland,, 5 Munf. 492, and the cases which have followed it, does not apply to the settlement of an account by a mere fiduciary or trustee, of his transactions with his cestui que trust, where the fiduciary or trustee is charged with the duty of hiring out the slaves for. the benefit of his cestui que trust, and neglects to render an account of the hires, if actually received, or to charge himself with the hires, if they might have been received, or where he fails to hire out the slaves and uses them for his own benefit.”
    
   March 19th, 1817,

JUDGE) ROANE

pronounced the Court’s opinion.

*The Court is of opinion, that there is no error in the Decree, so far as the principal thereof allows interest apon the hires, of the Slave in question, actually received by the Appellant, from others, from the dates of such receipts respectively: but that the same is erroneous in allowing interest upon hires, not so received by him, and also upon those, decreed to be due by him for the slave aforesaid, the same being unliquidated, and merely conjectural sums, and which, therefore, the Appellant was in no default in not paying.

The Decree is therefore affirmed, so far as it is not hereby declared to be erroneous, and is reversed as to the residue, with Costs; and the cause is remanded, to have the account reformed, pursuant to the principles now declared, in order to a final Decree.