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142 Pa. 263

Pressel v. Bice

Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Blair County · decided 1891-05-04

No. 220 January Term 1891, Sup. Ct.; court below, No. 107 June Term 1889, C. P. On June 10, 1889, an appeal was entered by the defendant from the judgment of an alderman in favor of James Pressel against Alexander Bice. On August 29, 1889, the plaintiff filed a statement of claim in trespass for the wrongful sale by the defendant, a constable, of a portable saw-mill engine belonging to the plaintiff, on execution process issued against one James Dodson. Issue.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The general rule is, that the sale of personal property is not good against the creditors of the vendor, unless possession be delivered by the vendor in accordance with the sale. In determining the kind of possession necessary to be given, regard must be had, not only to the character of the property, but also to the nature of the transaction, the position of the parties, and the intended use of the property. No such change of possession as will defeat the fair and honest object of the parties, is required.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Taney v. Penn Nat. Bank

Relies on Crawford v. Davis · Ziegler & Co. v. Handrick · McClure v. Forney

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1891-05-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1941

2 federal appellate · 6 state decisions

50189119001910192019301940decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam :

¶1The court below submitted to the jury the question whether there was such a change of the possession of the property in controversy as was reasonable under the circumstances. The said property consisted of a steam-engine attached to a portable saw-mill. Both were on the premises of the plaintiff at the time he-purchased them from James Dodson. Had they been upon the premises of the latter the case would have been different, and it might have been the duty of the learned judge below to instruct the jury, as a matter of law, that there was not a sufficient change of possession. But the fact that the property was actually on Pressel’s property, at the time of the sale, justified the court in submitting that matter to the jury. The modern doctrine upon this subject appears to be *271that-, in determining the kind of possession necessary to be given, regard must be had, not only to the character of the property, but also to the nature of the transaction, the position of the parties, and the intended use of the property. No such change of possession as will defeat the fair and honest object of the parties is required: Crawford v. Davis, 99 Pa. 576; Ziegler v. Handrick, 106 Pa. 87; McClure v. Forney, 107 Pa. 414.

¶2The allegation that the alderman had no jurisdiction is without merit. Seitzinger v. Steinberger, 12 Pa. 879, is not in point. The question decided in that case was that a justice of the peace had no jurisdiction of an action on the case against a constable for not paying rent in arrear out of the proceeds of an execution levied on goods upon the demised premises. The present suit was in trespass against the constable, to recover damages for the wrongful seizure and sale of the property. This precise point was decided in Stamer v. Nass, 3 Gr. 240, where the jurisdiction was sustained.

¶3The matter referred to in the fifth assignment does not rise to the dignity of a labor claim, under the act of 1883, and is not worth discussing.

¶4Judgment affirmed.

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