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19 Cal. 320

Engles v. Marshall

California Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1861

California Supreme Court · decided 1861-07-01

Action to recover the value of certain horses, harness and a stage coach alleged to have been illegally taken from plaintiff by defendants. The defense was a seizure on the twentieth of December, 1860, and subsequent sale of the property by defendant Marshall, as Sheriff, on attachment and execution in the suits of defendant Ebner and one Milburn against George Engles & Co., a firm composed of George Engles and Wm. Hamilton.

Relies on Stevens v. Irwin

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1861-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently December 1898

6 state decisions

401861187018801890decided

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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Baldwin, J. delivered the opinion of the Court

¶1Field C. J. concurring.

¶2Upon examining the record in this case, we think the Judge below did not err in instructing the jury that the facts showed no valid sale, for want of such change of possession of the property in controversy as is required by the Statute of Frauds. The property' seems to have remained, to all external appearances, in the same condition in which it was before the sale, with nothing to notify third persons of the sale, or of the claims of the new owner. In Stevens v. Irwin (15 Cal. 506) we said : “ Delivery must be made of the property; the vendee must take the actual possession; that possession must be open and unequivocal, carrying with it the usual marks and indications of ownership by the vendee. It must be such as to give evidence to the world of the claims of the new owner. He must, in other words, be in the usual relation to the property which owners of goods occupy to their property. This possession must be continuous—not taken to be surrendered back again—not formal, but substantial. But it need not necessarily continue indefinitely, when it is bona fide and openly taken, and it is kept for such a length of time as to give general advertisement of the status of the property and the claim to it by the vendee.” An application of these principles to the evidence shows that the case of the plaintiff is within the Statute of Frauds.

¶3Judgment affirmed.

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