By the Court.
delivering the opinion.
Alpha K. Ayer instituted suit in the Inferior Court of Muscogee county, against Job B. Hicks, under the following circumstances : Ayer exposed to sale at public auction in the city of Columbus, on the 5th of January, 1847, four negroes, which were bid off by Hicks, namely : Jenny and child, at $530 ; Amelia, at $650 ; and Charles, at $405. Hicks failed to comply with the terms of sale, and two days thereafter, executed and delivered to Ayer his written engagement, that said slaves might be re-sold on the twelfth of the same month, and that he would pay the loss and expense attending the re-sale. The negroes were re-sold, at a loss of two hundred and seventy-eight dollars. Charles being again knocked off to Hicks, at $235. The defendant offered
In the argument of the cause, counsel for the defendant called the attention of the Court to this point of law, that if the defendant at the second sale, offered to take the boy Charles at the price for which he then bid him off, and the plaintiff refused to let him have him unless he would pay the price bid for him at the first sale, that then the defendant might abandon his contract, and consider the same as rescinded; and that he was thereby discharged from his liability. The Court, in response to this suggestion, remarked to the jury, that whatever might be the law upon such a state of facts, as that to which its attention had been called, it must decline giving them any charge upon that point, there being no plea filed by the defendant setting up’ such defence; whereupon, the defendant excepted. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, for the difference. Two questions are presented for the consideration of the Court: First, should the appeal from the Inferior Court have been dismissed ? Second, was the charge sought, proper under the pleadings in the cause ?
But has the defendant been damnified by this error? We think not. The testimony shews that Charles was re-sold to one Cromwell, at the sum of two hundred and thirty-five dollars, the price at which he was bid off by Hicks. The plaintiff proposes only to charge Hicks with the difference between the two sales. Had Charles been delivered to him, he would have been chargea
Judgment affirmed.
