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11 Ala. 233

Kyle v. Gray

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 15, 1847

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1847-01-15

Writ of Error to the Circuit Court of Tuscaloosa. TROVER, by Gray against Kyle, to recover damages for the conversion of a horse. At the trial, it was proved that the horse was sold by the plaintiff to one Keziah, on the condition that the latter should pay $40, part in iron and part in money. Keziah took the horse in possession under this contract, and paid $18 in iron but the plaintiff reserved to himself a lien until the purchase money should be paid.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1847-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently May 2000

2 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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GOLDTHWAITE, J.

¶1There seems to us to be nothing in the ruling of the circuit court which could have misled the jury. The request, in the first instance, is made for instructions, that if the horse went lawfully into the defendant’s possession, it was essential the plaintiff should prove a demand and refusal. The counsel do not seriously question the correctness of this refusal, nor indeed could they do so with effect, for a demand and refusal is only evidence of a conversion — not necessarily or in all cases a conversion by itself. After refusing the charge, the court proceeds to say, that if a conversion was proved in this particular case, then no demand was necessary. It is said, the facts do not establish the right of property in the plaintiff, and therefore there was no conversion. We do not well sée what stronger evidence there could be of a conversion than the sale of the property, but whether this sale was a conversion, depended on the other question as to the right of property. This we must presume was left to the jury, and although we, in their station might possibly have come to a different conclusion, on the evidence stated, this is no ground to reverse the judgment, there being no error in the points of law on which the ■ cause went to the jury.

¶2Judgment affirmed.

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