Wanzer v. Truly/Dissent Daniel

Mr. Justice DANIEL.

I dissent from the decision by the majority of the court in this case, and in expressing my disagreement, I have felt no greater perplexity in reconciling that decision with every principle of justice, than in reconciling it with itself. For, to my apprehension, it clearly appears that if there ever was a decision which could be characterized as felo de se, it is precisely the decision made in this case.

This controversy had its commencement by a proceeding familiarly known and practised in several of the States, and particularly in the south and southwest, usually denominated a foreign attachment. By this proceeding a person whose debtor may have absconded, or who has no visible property which can be reached directly by legal process, is authorized to attach in the hands of a third person who may be indebted to the debtor of the attaching party, an amount equal to the demand due to the latter. Under such proceeding, the plaintiff in the attachment is placed in the precise position of his debtor, with respect to the defendant, and can either legally or equitably recover of him nothing more than what was due from the defendant to the debtor of the plaintiff. In other words, the plaintiff stands affected and is bound by every legal and equitable right appertaining to the parties of whose transactions and relation to each other he seeks to avail himself. Avoiding a detail of the facts and proceedings had in this cause, further than is necessary to its correct comprehension, those facts and proceedings are prominently and simply these. That in the year 1836, the appellant, Bennett R. Truly, purchased five slaves of one John R. Herbert, and for the purchase-money for those slaves executed two promissory notes of $3,575 each. That Herbert, shortly after the sale and purchase of these slaves, removed to Texas, where he died insolvent. That Wanzer and Harrison, being creditors by judgment of this insolvent person, Herbert, sued out an attachment against Truly, and obtained a judgment thereon for the sum of $3,575, the amount of one of the notes given for the purchase of the slaves, the other note for the like amount having been paid.

That suits had been instituted by certain persons whose guardian, during their minority, had run off with those slaves, from the State of Alabama, and sold them to Herbert, of whom they were purchased by Truly, who was ignorant, when he purchased, of any defect in the title to them. That in the suits brought for these slaves, a recovery had taken place in behalf of the true owners, and that the slaves had been surrendered by Truly, who had also, by a compromise with the agent of the persons who had obtained a decree for the slaves, delivered to said agent four other slaves, in satisfaction of the hires of those slaves, and of the costs incurred by their true owners' prosecuting their title to them.

Upon the foregoing facts this court have by their decision affirmed that Herbert, having had no title to the slaves, could convey none to his vendee, and that the slaves sold by him having constituted the only consideration for the notes given by Truly, by the recovery of those slaves by title paramount that consideration had failed or been taken away, and therefore there remained no foundation for a claim upon Truly, either on behalf of Herbert or of any person occupying his precise position.

Had the decision of this court terminated here, or at a conclusion seemingly inevitable from the principles and terms of that decision, namely: the absolute denial to Herbert, or to Wanzer and Harrison, representing Herbert, of any description of right under the contract with Truly, that decision would have been reconcilable with justice, and consistent with itself. But this court goes on to argue that, from the evidence in the record, it appears that Truly has not responded to any regular and specific rate or demands for the hire of the slaves, whilst they were in his possession or under his control, and therefore there should be an account taken in this cause, showing on the one hand the interest upon the claim asserted through Herbert, and on the other the amount of the hires of the slaves, regularly and specifically computed, with the view, (if indeed such view is comprehensible for any conceivable reason,) that, should there turn out to be an excess of hires beyond the interest upon the claim asserted through Herbert, that excess may be applied to the benefit of Wanzer and Harrison.

But the error of this direction by the court is exposed by the following inquiries. Suppose not one cent of the hires of these slaves has been paid, to whom do those hires belong? To whom would Truly be accountable for them? He would be accountable, surely, to those to whom the subjects constituting the source of those hires belonged, and not to the purloiner of their property, nor to persons deducing title from such wrong-doers. Nay, the payment to the latter of any portion of those hires would not exempt the payer from reclamation from the true owners.

Then let it be supposed that Truly may have compromised with the true owners the claim for hires, either by the payment of an amount less than their actual or entimated aggregate, or by the transfer of property in kind, (slaves, for instance, as it appears were delivered to the true owners,) will this court undertake to deny to those parties the right to compromise their own interests? It may have been that the delivery of the four slaves, in satisfaction for the hires, was more satisfactory and more advantageous to the persons accepting them, than any other arrangement which could have been made. But should these rightful claimants have been willing to surrender any portion of their interests, or from motives wise or unwise, should have relinquished the whole of them, could such a proceeding have given validity to the fraudulent pretensions of Herbert, or of those who seek to profit by his dishonesty? The decision of this court having declared the contract with Herbert void for an entire want or failure of consideration, unless the maxim ex nihilo nihil fit shall be reversed, and this court shall affirm that something can arise from nothing, it passes my powers to perceive how any right, legal or equitable, can spring from this contract with Herbert, thus declared to be void, and that alleged right, too, existing in one who, in legal intendment, is Herbert himself. If the contract with Herbert is valid, then the judgment upon the attachment should be enforced to its full extent; if it was invalid, then in the same extent it should be repudiated; but this court, while it condemns the contract itself, attempts to deduce from it and to enforce consequences which necessarily imply its validity, and which can result only from regarding it as valid. In this aspect of the decision, I cannot but regard it as injurious to the appellees, as irreconcilable with sound principles of logic or of law, as irreconcilable with itself. I forbear here any remark as to the periods at which the grounds of defence in the court below came into existence, or were tangible and practicable, or as to the manner in which they were relied on, in opposition to the demand against the appellee. These are matters entirely distinct from the essential merits of those grounds of defence, and any examination of them seems unnecessary, or rather to be excluded, by the decision here, upon the character of the defence itself.