Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/198

 SQUIRE ATTOM'S DECISIONS off his own gloves. In somewhat of a dilemma, the editor visited the Equitable Assurance Company, and an investigating committee there was found, apparently do ing the most business. Those of the com pany inquired of claimed that they had always had all the equity they wanted, so never had had to pay any attention to their hands or feet. There are exceptions as to the tastes of cows — my cow, for instance. The opinion herein has commendably followed the beaten path of natural history. Though point lace and dish rags may be necessary to the sub sistence of some specimens, not anything and everything is considered edible to the family bovine. Our cow, of whose milk we have been selling a teacupful a day, would turn from a bale of fresh hay to eat a hair mattress. A mop, a kite, are her delight. But she is going. She got in and consumed quite a number of white laundered pieces hanging on some bushes; and we lost the milk customer on account of blueing in the milk. But we have found another cus tomer — a customer for her. We have sold her to a paper mill. Dodd v. Dodson Originally brought in the same court in which tried Equity of the Case Where a division fence is designedly placed by complainant beyond his line, held, that in suit by him to recover contri bution to the cost of the fence, the maxim, He who Comes into Equity must Come with Clean Hands, will be applied strictly; and it will be the duty of the court to pierce the veil of mere fence-building soil for the real thing. Where, by reason of such placing, com plainant's cow comes onto the adjoining owner's land, and is there captured for cause and taken beyond the fence, held, that complainant, by his own misdoings, has cut himself off from benefit of equity or clergy, as against any lien on the cow arising from her wanderings. It is not conversion or larceny, and the fence will

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not be deemed a "fence" for stolen goods, though the cow be never so safe as be hind it. Statement of the Case Complainant claims of defendant $90.00, being claim of $40.00 for the material for a line fence contracted for by defendant, and $50.00 to cover the value of a cow alleged to have been wrongfully taken out of his lot by his antagonist herein. There is a counterclaim of $65.00 for the loss of a lace fichu claimed by defendant to have been destroyed by the cow in question while trespassing. The fence was not produced in court, the defendant admitting its exist ence, and that he had agreed to pay for the material if complainant would erect it. But he alleges, and fairly substantiates, that complainant designedly placed the fence some foot and a half away from his own premises. There was entire agreement as to the style of the fence, and there is nothing in the evidence tending to show that com-' plainant placed it so far away because it was obnoxious to him. The material had been delivered close to complainant's house, and there is evidence tending to show that his physical energy is not of the willing kind. The court took the ground that had the placing been accidental the fence would have been a good deal nearer the material as it lay. The evidence offered by com plainant that in winter defendant's boy never shoveled their front walk any farther than where the fence was placed, was given some consideration; but true monuments of survey, long hidden to both parties, but known to the complainant before the con tract, being identified by defendant, but not produced, the boy's stopping place was of course incompetent. It appears that com plainant's cow and defendant's boy were running loose at the same time in their re spective yards; that the cow was discovered by the defendant's wife tapping her clothes line; that a moment of anguish followed, for before she could utter, the cow's nose was close to the pins, and a costly piece of lace was dangling somewhere in the cow's throat; that a handy noose was thrown over her horns by the boy, and she was led along the fence around into new quarters. Com plainant swore, however, that the boy, from the effects of a "Wild West" show, had been practicing for a week on his harm less cow with a lasso, and had caught her at