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24 N.C. 36

Devane v. . Fennell

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided December 5, 1841

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1841-12-05

This was an action of Trespass, tried at the Fall Term, 1841, of New Hanover ¡Superior Court of Law, before his Honor Judge Pearson, in which the plaintiff declared that the defendant had taken possession of and carried away a certain raft of timber belonging to the plaintiff.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1841-12-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently December 1957

1 state decisions

30184118501860187018801890190019101920193019401950decided

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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Daniel, J.

¶1 The owners of the Saw Mill agreed to give the plaintiff four dollars per thousand feet for his raft of timber, when inspected and measured. The timber was impounded, to secure it against the dangers of the river, and to have it ready for inspection and measurement. When it was placed in the pen, it was not intended to be an absolute delivery ; the constructive possession was still in the vendor; there remained something to be done by the vendor, to wit, to have it inspected and measured. It is a well settled rule of law that the vendee’s title to the property is not complete by force of a contract of sale, if any thing-remain to be done on the part of the seller to ascertain the price, quantity, or individuality of the goods before delivery : thus if a portion of a larger quantity be sold and cannot be ascertained without weighing or measuring, or other act separating and distinguishing it from the rest, the purchaser has no title, till his portion has been set apart. Burk v Davies, 2 Maul. & S. 397. Austin v Craner, 4 Taunton, 644. White v Wilks, 5 Taunton, 176. Simmons v Swift, 12 Eng. C. L. R. 388. Judge Kent says, it is a fundamental principle, pervading everywhere the doctrine of the sales of chattels, that if the goods be sold by number, weight, or measure, the sale is incomplete, and the risk continues with the seller, until the specific property be separated and identified. 2 Kent’s Com-496.

¶2 We are of the opinion that the charge of the Judge below was correct, and that the judgment must be affirmed.

¶3 Per Cueiaw. Judgment affirmed.

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