Court Opinion

ID: 9299936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-12-02 17:06:26.793086+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:13:38.666698
License: Public Domain

WASHINGTON, Circuit Justice
(PETERS, District Judge, absent),
stopped Hopkinson, who was to have argued for the defendant, and observed, that the case was too plain to justify the delay of a further discussion. The principles which must govern the case are so clear, that there cannot be two opinions respecting them. The suit is brought by the payee against the drawer; and consequently, the consideration for which the bill was drawn, may be inquired into. If Echart’s debt was not properly chargeable to Gardner & Co., then the bill was drawn without consideration; because, striking out that item, the balance was in favour of Gardner & Co. The legal result of all this would be, that the plaintiffs cannot recover. The endorsement of a bill of lading, transfers the legal right in the property to the assignee, and therefore all the right of Echart in this cargo passed to Gardner & Co., on the 26th of May, by the assignment made on that day. Had the cargo got into the actual possession of the plaintiffs before the assignment, they would have had a right, in virtue of their lien, to satisfy their debt against Echart, out of the proceeds. But this lien can never arise, until such actual possession is obtained; and at the time it attaches, the property must belong to the principal, and it continues no longer than the actual possession continues. This was not a consignment by a debtor to his creditor, for the purpose of discharging a debt; but from a principal to bis factor, for account, and at the risk of the principal. The possession of the plaintiffs ■was the possession of Gardner & Co., who had acquired a- legal title to the property, long before the goods arrived; and of course they could have no lien, on account of a debt due from Echart The bill, then, is drawn without consideration, and your verdict should be for the ■ defendant
The plaintiffs suffered a nonsuit.