Court Opinion

ID: 7041551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 06:50:45.633848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:11:22.261138
License: Public Domain

On petition eor a rehearing.
Biddle, J.
The earnestness of the petition for a rehearing in this case convinces us of the sincerity of the petitioner, but it seems to us that he has misconceived the scope of the opinion pronounced. He labors to convince us that when a tree is wrongfully converted into rails, they may be replevied; and when timber is wrongfully cut and converted into coal, the coal may be replevied; and cites other similar cases. The opinion nowhere controverts these propositions. "When an article is made personal property by being severed from the realty to which it first belonged, it may be replevied as long as its separate identity can be ascertained, whatever shape it may take; but when an article of personal property, though wrongfully taken, has become real estate by being attached to the realty, it can not be replevied, because it has lost its separate identity, and its character as personal property. To apply these principles to the present case:—If rails are wrongfully taken from a fence, they become personal property and may be replevied by the owner; but if rails are wrongfully taken and put into a fence, and thus made a part of the realty, they can not be replevied, because they have lost their separate identity, and can not be delivered without detaching them from the realty, of which they have become a part. And this is precisely the case we are considering. We have examined the authorities cited by the petitioner, and, as we read them, *474all the cases in replevin are against the petitioner. In Davis v. Easley, 18 Ill. 192, it is held, that a party may maintain replevin for hoards made from trees wrongfully cut on his land; and also held that the owner of personal property, wrongfully taken, may replevy it so long as it can he identified, unless it is annexed to or made a part of some other thing which is the- principal, as timber converted into a house, grain converted into malt, or coin converted into a cup.
The appellee also labors hard, and cites many authorities, to show us that a wrong-doer can not obtain any title in the property he wrongfully takes, as against the owner— a proposition nowhere disputed; but it does not follow that the action of replevin will, lie in all cases, merely because the owner has not lost the title to his properly. Nor will our statute abolishing the distinction between the forms of actions aid the appellee. The legislature can not abolish the distinction between personal and real actions, nor between actions to enforce a specific perfoi’mance of a contract or recover a specific article, and those which seek merely a money judgment; nor between actions arising out of tort, and those founded upon contract; because the distinction exists in fact, and not in mere form. The distinction between the actions of debt, covenant, assumpsit, trover, trespass, trespass on the case, and suits in equity to recover money directly, may be and is abolished by the code, because the remedy sought in all these eases is the same, namely a money judgment. The appellee, therefore, can not bring his action in replevin to recover his specific rails, and, failing in that, maintain his case to recover a money judgment for their value, merely because he has not lost his property in the rails. The law affords him ample remedy if he rightly chooses it; hut it is no part of the duty of this court to instruct him as to what that remedy is. .
The petition is overruled. •
Opinion on petition for rehearing filed at the May term, 1877.