Wright v. Grover

Decided January 15, 1862

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1862-01-15

This case originated in the trial of right of property, before Malden Jones, Esq., the acting sheriff' of Coles county, in which Edwin Wright was claimant, and Joseph Grover, Lindle Madison, Benjamin 0. Shaw and James H. Conner, were plaintiffs in execution; which resulted in a verdict against the claimant, who removed the case into the Coles Circuit Court, by appeal. A trial of the cause was had by a jury, who returned a verdict against the claimant.

Relies on Brown v. Riley

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1862-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently November 1904

5 state decisions

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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Caton, C. J.

¶1The court certainly erred in refusing to instruct the jury, that the law will not presume that a fraud had been committed. The law never does presume a fraud; that fact must always be proved, either by direct or circumstantial evidence. When there is no evidence of fraud, neither the court or jury have the right to infer or presume it.

¶2Nor was it necessary to the validity of the complete transfer of the property, that the possession should be continued in the purchaser, as was held by the court, by the modification of the claimant’s third and fifth instructions. Brown v. Rielly, 22 Ill. 45. If, after the delivery to the purchaser, he subsequently returned it to the vendor, it may be a circumstance tending to show only a colorable transaction, more or less cogent, according to the circumstances. But it certainly may be explained. The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.

¶3Judgment reversed.