40 Vt. 641 | Vt. | 1868
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The action is trover for three tons of hay, for which the plaintiff recovered judgment in the county court. The only question made in this court is, whether the county court erred in staying execution upon a supposed liability of the defendant to an officer who attached the hay in question, with the residue of the plaintiff’s hay, in a suit of one Plimpton against this plaintiff, four days before the conversion of the hay in question by the defendant.
If the hay in question was exempt from attachment, the defendant was not liable to the officer, and therefore the order of the county court, staying execution, not justified. It appears that the plaintiff, at the time of the attachment, December 15th, 1866, was a farmer, carrying on a farm of one hundred acres, and owned no more hay and forage than sufficient to keep one cow, ten sheep and a yoke of oxen or pair of steers through one winter, but had sufficient, beside the hay in controversy, to keep a cow and ten sheep through one winter. He owned one cow, ten sheep, and a pair of steer calves which would become a year old the next spring, and had no other oxen, steers, or other team.
It is insisted on the part of the plaintiff that the hay in question was exempt from attachment on two grounds, first, that the steer calves which the plaintiff owned were steers within the meaning of the statute exempting from attachment one pair of oxen or steers, and forage sufficient for keeping the same through the winter ; that having the steers, forage sufficient to winter them was exempt; second, that if the steer calves were not such as come within the meaning of the statute, still forage sufficient in quantity to winter a yoke of oxen or steers is specifically exempted, whether the party owns any oxen or steers or not. If the steer calves, as they are called, are exempt, the forage to winter them was .clearly exempt from attachment. The General Statutes, after enumerating various articles of property as exempt from attachment and execution, adds,
But it is insisted that by the act of 1866, the exemption of oxen and steers is limited in terms to such as are kept and used for team
The exception taken by the defendant on trial not being insisted upon, the judgment of the county court for the plaintiff, is affirmed. As the steers were exempt from attachment, the hay in question was also exempt, and the court erred in staying execution. The other ground on which the plaintiff’s counsel claim the hay was exempt need not be noticed.
As the order of the county court staying execution is not well founded in law, that order is vacated, and the plaintiff is entitled to execution.