37 P. 61 | Or. | 1894
Opinion by
Counsel contend that the plaintiff has a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy at law, and that equity will not entertain jurisdiction to enjoin the sale upon execution of personal property that is exempt therefrom. There is a conflict of authority upon the right of a judgment debtor to enjoin the sale of his personal property under execution upon the ground that it is exempt by law from sale under judicial process. It has been held in- Texas that a sale of personal property which is exempt from execution may be restrained at the suit of the judgment debtor: Nichols v. Claiborne, 39 Tex. 363; Alexander v. Holt, 59 Tex. 205; Stein v. Freiberg, 64 Tex. 271; but Mr. Freeman, in his work on Executions (Yol. 2, § 439, 2d Ed.), in commenting upon the rule established in Nichols v. Claiborne, says: “No reason for the decision was given, and we doubt whether any sufficient
In Baxter v. Baxter, 77 N. C. 118, it was held that injunction was not the proper remedy of the judgment debtor to determine the title to exempt personal property seized under execution. “ Upon principle,” says Mr. High in his work on Injunctions, § 122, in discussing the right of the judgment debtor to enjoin the sale of exempt personal property under execution, “it is difficult to perceive any satisfactory reason for interfering by injunction in such cases, since adequate relief may usually be had by an action at law.” Section 380, Hill’s Code, provides that' “the enforcement or protection of a private right, or the protection of or redress for an injury thereto, shall be obtained by a suit in equity in all cases where there is not a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law.” Sections 132-143 furnish such a remedy at law for the recovery of personal property, and section 214 authorizes a jury to award damages for an unlawful seizure of such property. The owner of a chattel having a complete remedy at law for its unlawful seizure or detention, equity will not entertain jurisdiction at his suit to recover possession of it, except where it has a certain, special, extraordinary, and unique value, impossible to be compensated for by damages: 1 Pomeroy’s Equity, § 177. And if it appeared from the complaint, in the case at bar, that any article of personal property levied upon by the defendants possessed a special value to the plaintiff alone,