1 Rob. 324 | Va. | 1842
If this is not an action of detinue brought in a court of chancery, it must be because the plaintiffs have asserted their demand by a bill instead of a declaration. It is a suit to recover a single slave, by the owners of the legal title, if any, against an adverse claimant, without any impediment whatever to the prosecution of the plain and adequate remedy at law. If there is any thing in the case, besides the sex of the slave, to give any the slightest colour of jurisdiction to a court of equity, I have not been able to find it. She had no issue, and of course there was no necessity for a discovery; and the ignorance of the plaintiffs, without the slightest enquiry, of a fact (that of issue) which^ never existed, can furnish no reason for coming into equity ; the more especially when such ignorance is not even suggested by them, but is to be surmised by the court from the interjection of a prayer for a discovery of the issue, “ if any.” It is perfectly clear as a general rule, that in a bill to substitute an equitable for a
I think the decree ought to be reversed, and the bill dismissed with costs.
The other judges concurring, decree reversed and bill dismissed.