11 Ky. 299 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1822
Opinion of the Court.
A constable, having an execution of fieri facias in his hands against the appellant, levied it on his mare
1. Whether the constable was liable for the seizure, does not appear in this cause. It rests on the appellant’s own suggestions on the day of sale, that the constable was guilty of any impropriety. But if he had been, it is hard to conceive how he could have been rendered more liable, by this cunning artifice of employing a private purchaser in behalf of the appellant himself, instead of redeeming the mare from the execution by the direct payment of the debt at once. It must, however, have been intended to keep this purchase for the appellant, a secret, and thereby palm the falsehood upon the world, that the appellant had totally lost the mare, and thus make the constable wrongfully liable
Here, the appellant proclaimed to the world, in the first sale, that it was real, and that the highest bidder was the real purchaser, and that the estate was forever gone from him to the purchaser; but so sooii as the sheriff takes him at his word, and seizes the property as belonging to this purchaser, he reverses his attitude, and declares that the sale was all pretended, and not a real one, and that the estate belongs not to the purchaser. Once, when asked the apology for this first deceptive pretence, none was given, according to his own account, except that of ensnaring the first officer into deeper damages, than if the whole truth had been told. The law, then, in refusing its aid, only compels the appellant to keep his first attitude, and assumes as true, what he proclaimed to be true on the first sale.
It is, therefore, considered by the court, that the judgment aforesaid be affirmed; which is ordered to be certified to be said circuit court.