39 Me. 448 | Me. | 1855
— The action is trover for a vessel called the Kingsbury. During the year 1848, Willard Clapp undertook to build her, and soon became embarrassed and unable
In proof of their title the plaintiffs introduced a mortgage of the hull of the vessel, made to them by Willard Clapp, on Nov. 5, 1848, and recorded in the records of the town of Newcastle on Dec. 4, 1848. It was made subject to a prior mortgage “ now on said vessel for about two hundred dollars,” which appears to have been made by Willard Clapp to John Haddocks and John P. Baker, on October 28, 1848, and recorded in the records of the same town, on Nov. 2, 1848, to indemnify them for having signed as sureties, for Willard Clapp a note for $-200, bearing date on March 10,1847, payable to Nathaniel Bryant in four months from date. Prom the testimony of Haddocks and Baker it appears, that on June 12, 1849, they paid upon that note about $78, which has never been repaid to them. Whatever title they had acquired to that vessel was transferred to the defendants on May 18, 185S.
Any title, which the plaintiffs, as mortgagees,, or the defendants, as purchasers from Willard Clapp, had to that vessel, became extinguished, by operation of law, in sixty days after Haddocks- and Baker had been compelled to pay part of the note of Bryant.
This suit was commenced on January 12, 1852, and it is insisted, that the defendants cannot be permitted to set up a title in themselves, acquired since that time, to defeat the action. Admitting this position to be correct, the question will remain, whether the plaintiffs, when their suit was commenced, had any legal title to the vessel; for if they had not, the action cannot be maintained.
The extreme negligence exhibited by Maddoeks and Baker, by the plaintiffs, and by the defendants, to secure and enforce their rights, until after the vessel was lost at sea,may not be productive of so great mischief as might have been anticipated. Plaintiffs nonsuit.