Munroe v. Thomas

Decided July 1, 1855

California Supreme Court · decided 1855-07-01

Judgment was obtained against the defendant. The Sheriff’s return upon the execution was in the following words : “ Served the within execution on the Linda Ferry, or the interest of the defendant, L. W. Thomas, in and to said ferry, and the appurtenances belonging, this eleventh day of May, 1854, and on the seventh day of June, after full legal notice, as required by law, sold the above interest of defendant in and to the said property to Mr. S. A. Armstrong, for the sum of…

Cited in Anderson (1889)’s definition of “Ferry”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1855-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently October 1911

9 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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Heydenfeldt, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

¶1Murray, C. J. concurred.

¶2A ferry is a franchise, and is not the subject of levy, sale, or delivery, under execution. It involves a personal trust granted by the sovereign, upon conditions imposed upon the grantee alone, and his liability cannot be removed by substitution.

¶3The term “ appurtenances,” used in the return of levy by the Sheriff, is too general, vague, and indefinite, to comprehend in its meaning any personal property as the subject of levy; it therefore passed nothing by the sale.

¶4The order is reversed.