47 S.C. 243 | S.C. | 1896
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
This, action was instituted on the 29th day of November, 1893, for the recovery of the possession of personal property and damages for the unlawful detention thereof. It has been in this Court once before. Knight et al. v. Cothran, 45 S. C. It came on for a trial, the second time, in the Court of Common Pleas for Green-ville County, in this State, before Judge Benet and a jury, at the November, 1895, term of Court. Verdict was rendered for defendant. After judgment was rendered thereon, an appeal was taken to this Court. The charge of the Judge and the exceptions thereto will be reported.
It seems to us that the fundamental and controlling issue here may be stated in the question: Were the defendants, respondents, justified in seizing the property of the plaintiff, appellant, by the judgment and execution in the case of J. E. Knight, as plaintiff, against J. R. Cothran, as defendant? Appellant’s attorney in his argument virtually admits this to be true, for he there says: “If said process was valid and the defendants were lawfully acting thereunder, then we admit their taking was lawful; otherwise, we insist they were trespassers.” This being so, we shall pass directly to this question. In the year 1893, the plaintiff, Cothran, and the defendant, Knight, were tenant and landlord, respectively. On the 23d day of November, 1893, Knight, the landlord, having a debt due to him by his tenant, Cothran, amounting to $64.78, and being apprehensive of the loss of his debt by Cothran’s removing or disposing of his property, applied to William Scott, as the trial justice for Dunklin Township, in the county of Greenville, in which both the parties lived, and where the property was located, to bring suit for said $64.78 against Cothran. On
In the case at bar, Cothran seeks to deny that the judgment of Knight v. Cothran was a valid judgment.
We must overrule all of these exceptions.
It is the judgment of this Court, that the judgment of the Circuit Court be affirmed.