Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

61 N.H. 151

Lucy v. Gray

Supreme Court of New Hampshire

Decided December 5, 1881

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1881-12-05

Trover., for a saw-mill and machinery. Facts found by a referee. The plaintiffs having built a saw-mill on Garland’s land, under a parol agreement with him, and put machinery in it, gave the Belknap Savings Bank a personal property mortgage of the mill and machinery to secure their note to the bank. The machinery was so attached to the mill as to become a part of it.

Relies on Wells v. Pierce · Davis v. Handy · Goodale v. Wheeler

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1881-12-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 1980

2 state decisions

1018811890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Stanley, J.

¶1 The defendant was the agent of the bank in the sale of the mortgaged property, and could rightfully do whatever was reasonably necessary to make a profitable sale. Goodale v. Wheeler, 11 N. H. 424. If he kept within his legitimate authority, his title was the bank’s title, and any defence the bank could make he can avail himself of,.as its agent. As against the bank, the plaintiffs are estopped to say that the property mortgaged was not personal estate, as they represented it to be in the mortgage. Ballou v. Jones, 37 Ill. 95; Williams v. Swetland, 10 Iowa 51; Libbey v. Pierce, 47 N. H. 309, 314. Whether it would be so considered as between the bank and Garland, it is not necessary to decide.

¶2 As the plaintiffs stood by and allowed the lathe and the jointer to be sold without objecting, or suggesting that those articles had not been legally advertised, they cannot now be heard to make that objection. Knowing that it was proposed to sell all the property mentioned in the mortgage, actively engaging in promoting the sale, and at the same time remaining silent as to a prior irregularity in the proceedings, they cannot equitably take advantage, after the sale, of the supposed defect. Gurnsey v. Edwards, 26 *153 N. H. 224. 231; Davis v. Handy, 37 N. H. 65, 71; Wells v. Pierce, 27 N. H. 503, 510, 511.

¶3 Judgment for the defendant.

Blodgett, J., did not sit: the others concurred.
/61/nh/151 · .json · Public domain