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206 Mass. 119

Brown v. Statter

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1910-05-19

Bill in equity, filed in the Superior Court on September 16, 1909, alleging in substance that on July 9,1909, the defendant sold to the plaintiff the household furniture in a lodging house which the defendant was maintaining at number 12 Union Park in Boston; that a bill of sale thereof was given by the defendant to the plaintiff; that the plaintiff paid to the defendant $400 in cash and gave her $500 in ten promissory notes secured by a mortgage on the same furniture; that…

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently June 1916

1 state decisions

Relies on Braman v. Foss

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1910-05-19

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Loring, J.

¶1The only defense set up is that the wrong done the plaintiff was a conversion, and for that her remedy is by an action at law.

¶2The master has not found in terms when the title to the furniture was to pass to the plaintiff. He has found with respect to most of the articles here in question, that they were not delivered to the plaintiff when the list of the furniture was delivered on July 10. It would seem from this that the title was not to pass until the morning of July 10, that is to say, until after these articles had been surreptitiously removed by the defendant.

¶3But that is not material. It was as much a fraud to remove the articles surreptitiously after the title had passed provided it was the intention of the defendant to do so when she delivered the bill of sale and took back the mortgage. And we find that to be the fact.

¶4The defendant originally held ten negotiable notes signed by the plaintiff and secured by mortgage for the full amount which would have been due had all the articles exhibited been delivered, and in that mortgage is a covenant on the plaintiff’s part that she is the lawful owner of the articles never delivered to her by the defendant.

¶5*122It appears from the decree that at the date of the filing of the bill eight of these notes had not become due.

¶6The plaintiff would have had no defense to these notes, or to an action for breach of her covenant in'the mortgage, if the notes had come into the hands of a Iona fide purchaser for value.

¶7Taking these notes and this mortgage from the plaintiff under these circumstances was a fraud on the defendant’s part against which the plaintiff is entitled to relief in equity.

¶8The plaintiff was entitled to have the mortgage reformed as well as the notes surrendered. In that respect the decree entered did not give the plaintiff all she was entitled to. But she has not appealed from it. Braman v. Foss, 204 Mass. 404.

¶9The entry must be

¶10Decree affirmed.

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