Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Averill_v._Smith
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 21:31:53+00:00

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ERROR to the Circuit Court for the Northern District of New York.
The 89th section of the Customs Act of March, 1799,  contains a provision substantially the same.
These statutory provisions being in force, one Smith brought trespass against Averill, a collector of internal revenue, for taking and carrying away certain barrels of whisky.
The defendant pleaded not guilty, and gave notice, under the practice of the second circuit, of his defences.
On this verdict judgment was entered for the plaintiff, and to review that judgment the defendant prosecuted this writ of error.
Upon the facts shown by the special verdict, an action of trespass will not lie against the defendant.
The second resolution in the Six Carpenters' Case,  was 'that not doing cannot make the party who has the authority or license by the law a trespasser ab initio, because not doing is no trespass; and, therefore, if the lessor distrains for his rent, and thereupon the lessee tenders him the rent in arrear, &c., and requires his beasts again, and he will not deliver them, this not doing cannot make him a trespasser ab initio.' This principle has been universally recognized. In West v. Nibbs,  it was held 'that a landlord who has accepted the rent in arrear, and the expenses of the distress, after the impounding, cannot be treated as a trespasser merely because he retains possession of the goods distrained, although his refusal to deliver them up to the tenant may amount to a conversion so as to render him liable in trover.' And Gardner v. Campbell,  Smith v. Egginton,  Waterbury v. Lockwood,  Jacobsohn v. Blake,  and other authorities collected and to be seen in the last edition of Smith's Leading Cases,  affirm this rule. The certificate of probable cause showed that the original seizure of the goods was lawful, and threw the onus probandi upon the claimants.
There was an omission, too, in the judgment of the District Court to make any order in respect of the return of the goods. The goods were not in the possession of the collector. The marshal had taken them out of his possession by order of a writ directed to him; and, of course, thenceforth they were in possession of the court. The collector had nothing more to do with them. He could not return them to the plaintiff. The goods being in possession of the court, the plaintiff should himself have come into court and asked to have them back, when he would have received them as of course.
But whatever effect this absence of an order in respect to the return of the goods may have had upon the rights of the parties on the judgment in the District Court, it was necessary for the owner to have taken active measures in some form to recover his property, and to have encountered a refusal; and, without deciding whether he has a remedy in trover or replevin, it is clear on the authorities that the present action will not lie.
The case shows a trespass. The defendant, without process, seized, took, and carried away plaintiff's property. The cases cited on the other side, save one, were for acts of officers proceeding upon execution or process of the court. In Gardner v. Campbell, the defendant took the plaintiff's goods under and by virtue of an execution, and it was decided, simply, that replevin would not lie. This case has no bearing except to show that plaintiff herein could not have replevied the goods if the position of plaintiff in error is correct.
^1 2 Stat. at Large, 422.
^3 8 Reports, 146; S.C.., 1 Smith's Leading Cases, 216.
^4 4 Common Bench, 172.
^6 7 Adolphus & Ellis, 167.
^8 6 Manning & Granger, 918, 924.
^9 Seventh edition, vol. 1st, note to The Six Carpenters' Case.

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