20 Me. 287 | Me. | 1841
The opinion of the Court was by
The suit is replevin for several rafts of boards designated by certain marks. One raft only was replevied. The defendant pleaded the general issue, and by a brief statement alleged the property to be in himself and two other persons named. ‘ It appears from the report of the case, that the plaintiffs were the owners of logs distinguished by certain marks; and that the defendants caused another additional mark to be placed upon them by which they would become marked like his own and partner’s logs. The boards composing this raft were sawed from logs bearing this mark, but how many of them from logs before marked for the plaintiffs did not appear. They were sawed and pthed together, so that those sawed from
Upon another point made in the case, the presiding Judge was requested to instruct the jury “that if they believed, that the raft in suit at the time of suing out the plaintiff’s writ was not manufactured, that after said suit they were sawed into boards, that the boards in the spring of J 836 were rafted at the mills and had no existence as a raft prior to the spring of 1836, that the same were not rcpleviable in the present suit; and that their verdict should be for the defendant.” If it appeared from the report, that the logs had been sawed into boards before the commencement of the suit, the argument for the plaintiffs might be correct, that the description of the property in the writ should be regarded as applying to the boards, whether placed in a raft or in a pthe at the mill. And that whether defectively or properly described should not be the subject of inquiry under these pleadings. The property claimed would in such case be ascertained, though a part of the description should appear to be false. But the report states that “ these boards were rafted from the mills at Lower Old Town, in the spring of 1836, and came from a pthe which were manufactured from the logs in the fall or winter preceding.” The writ was sued out on the fifteenth day of October, 1835, and from such a statement it cannot be inferred, that any of the logs were sawed into boards before the commencement of the