Case Name: Tatum vs. Jameson and Johnson
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1841-04
Citations: 2 Hum. 298
Docket Number: 
Parties: Tatum vs. Jameson and Johnson.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Reports
Volume: 21
Pages: 298–301

Head Matter:
Tatum vs. Jameson and Johnson.
1. Bruce sold to Tatum ten head of cattle, delivered them and executed a bill of sale for them to Tatum: Held, 1st, that a verbal sale of such property was good and vested a valid title in the vendee. 2nd. That when a bill of sale is taken for such property the statutes of registration do not require it to be registered. 3d. That a bill of sale having been taken, it was properly read to the jury as the best evidence of the contract.
2. If a party contract for personal property and the possession remain in the vendor so that no title passes except by deed, the deed must be registered or it is void as to creditors.
3. A sale of a slave must be by deed registered; but the court have said that by construction the' title passes by verbal contract and delivery, as between the p arties, and that a deed registered is only necessary as against the creditors of the vendor.
Bruce sold to Tatum ten head of cattle for the sum of $45 75, on the 28th day of January, 1839. The cattle were delivered, the money paid, and a bill of sale executed and delivered on the same day. Jameson sued out, in the county of Carroll, the county of the residence of the parties, an attachment against Bruce. This attachment came to the hands of Johnson, a constable, who levied it upon the cattle in the possession of Tatum. A judgment was rendered upon this attachment by a justice of the peace, and a venditioni exponas issued on the 29th day of January, 1839, and the cattle were sold by Johnson by virtue thereof. The bill of sale was registered on the 1st day of February succeeding.
Tatum sued Jameson and Johnson by suit in trover on the 13th of May, 1839, in the circuit court of Carroll county. The defendants pleaded not guilty, and justification by attachment. Issue was taken on these pleas and the cause was submitted to a jury at the January term, 1841, Totten, judge, presiding. He charged the jury, that the contract of sale having been reduced to writing and evidenced by deed, such deed must have been registered before the levy of the attachment, or the attachment would hold the property. The jury rendered a verdict in favor of the defendants. The plaintiff moved the court for a new trial which was overruled, and thereupon he appealed in error,
Bullock and McGorry, for the plaintiff.
1st. A sale of this description of personal property is not required by our statutes to be reduced to writing, and having been reduced to writing, it is not required to be registered.
2. It was the best evidence of the contract, and therefore properly admissible as evidence to the jury.
A. W. O. Totten.
The attachment was levied on the property before the bill of sale for it was registered. The defendant therefore had a prior lien on the property, as a creditor of the vendor, provided it be necessary that bills of sale for such personalty should be registered.
“All bills of sale for the absolute conveyance of slaves or other personal property, shall be acknowledged by the party executing the same, or be proved by at least two subscribing witnesses, and be thereupon registered.” — Act of 1831, ch. 90, sec. 1.
“All such deeds and other instruments mentioned in the first section of this act, not so proved and registered as aforesaid, shall be null and void as to existing or subsequent creditors or bona fide purchasers without notice.” — See same Act.
Registration is necessary to vest the legal title, where the subject of the conveyance is real property, it being substituted for livery of seisin, and in this respect it is for the benefit of the parties. But in every other respect, the registry acts were made for the benefit of third persons, not parties to the contract of sale. Therefore a sale of personal property by parol, or writing not registered, is valid between the parties, but void only “as to existing or subsequent creditors or bona fide purchasers without notice.” The statute does not declare the contract void as between the parties. Nor has the statute any operation unless those creditors or purchasers be creditors or purchasers of the grantor or vendor. The bill of sale was admitted and read as a registered paper; it was afterwards proved also, as a common law paper; the construction first given to the registry acts, by plaintiff’s counsel, that the bill of sale could be properly read, as a registered paper, was correct. But as the defendant, a creditor of the vendor had caused the prop erty to be attached before the date of registration, the sale is void as to defendant. Vide Hays vs. McGuire, 8 Yer. Rep. 92: TViZ-liams vs. Walton, 8 Yer. Rep. 3S7: Bradshaw vs. Thomas, 7 Yer. Rep. 497: Grady vs. 'Sharron, 6 Yer. Rep. 321.

Opinion:
Gkeen, J.
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an action of trover for the recovery, of the value of ten head of cattle. The plaintiff proved the sale and delivery of the cattle to himself, by Felix M. Bruce, on the 28th of January, 1839, and the payment of $45 75 therefor, by him to Bruce, which money Bruce immediately paid out in discharge of executions against himself. He also read a bill of sale for the same property, registered the first day of'February, 1839, executed by Bruce to him. He also proved the execution of the bill of sale by the sub-sci'ibing witnesses. He also proved that the defendants took out of his possession a part of said property. The defendants justified their seizure of the property by virtue of an attachment in favor of Jameson vs. Bruce, issued the 29th of January, 1839, and levied on the cattle in dispute the same day, by Johnson, the other defendant, who was a constable.
The court charged the jury, "that a parol sale of this kind of property was good, when accompanied by delivery and value paid; but when it was reduced to writing as by deed or bill of sale, it being of the character of this paper, it merged the verbal transfer and was of no validity until registration as against creditors of the vendor; so that the levy of attachment, if prior to registration, would hold a lien on the property."
The jury found a verdict for the defendants, and the plaintiff appealed to this court. The court erred in the charge to the jury in saying that the written evidence of the contract was of no validity until it was registered, as against creditors of the vendor.— This is not a contract of sale which the law requires to be evidenced by writing. Averbal sale and delivery (as the court properly told the jury) will vest in the purchaser a good title. But if he choose to take a written transfer, surely his title, which vested by the delivery, is,not divested by the mere execution of a bill of sale by the vendor. The bill of sale only thereby becomes the best evidence of the contract, and in this case was very properly proved and read to the jury; but its registration not having been required by the law, could neither add to nor detract from its validity.
If a party contract for personal property, and the possession re-' main in the vendor, so that no title passes except by the deed, such deed must be registered, or it is void as to creditors or purchasers without notice. -
- But where no deed is necessary to pass the title, and consequently no registration necessary, the existence of a deed is of no consequence, except as constituting the best evidence of the terms of ^the contract. The case is not therefore embraced in the act of 1831, ch. 90.
It is not like the case of a slave. There the sale is required to be by deed registered. But the court, by construction, have said that the title passes by delivery as between the parties, and that a deed registered, is only necessary as it regards the creditors of the vendor. But this doctrine has no application to the case before the court. Let the judgment' be reversed, and the cause remanded.