Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

65 Ala. 232

Hungerford v. Moore

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1880

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1880-11-15

Tried before tbe Hon. Geo. H. Craig. This action was brought by Joseph C. Hungerford, Joseph Neal, Abe Bencher, Joseph B. Bush, and Bobert H. Harper, against William D. Moore ; and was commenced on tbe 11th November, 1878.

Relies on Thrash v. Bennett

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently May 1941

7 state decisions

301880189019001910192019301940decided

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 →

STONE, J.

¶1— If it were shown that Moore received the money in controversy as the agent, and on the claim and right of Hungerford and his associates, we would hold him estopped from denying the title of his principals. Receiving the money as theirs, he could not renounce their right to it. But that is not this case. Both plaintiffs and defendant, it seems, claimed the money in their own several rights. The theory of the suit is, that defendant received the money, when, ex aequo et bono, it belonged to the plaintiffs. In such case, the burden is on the plaintiffs, to show they are legally entitled to the money, and it is not enough to show that defendant has no right to it. If neither party is entitled to the money, neither can recover from the other.

¶2In the present case, our inquiries, by agreement of counsel, are narrowed to two questions : the’ authority of the governor, on the facts shown, to offer a reward; and the correct*236ness of tlie charge of the court. The last of these questions is not raised by the record before us. It is not shown that any exception was reserved to the charge of the court.— Thrash v. Bennett, 57 Ala. 156; Reeves v. Linam, Ib. 564.

¶3Had the governor authority to offer a reward, on the facts of this case ? The proof fails to show a state of facts variant from that recited in the proclamation, which is in the following language : “ Whereas, authentic information has reached this department that, on the night of the 4th inst., in the county of Perry, Isaac D. Moore was most brutally murdered by unknown parties: now, therefore, I, Geo. S. Houston, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested as governor of Alabama, do issue this my proclamation, offering a reward . . . for the arrest and conviction of each of the murderers of Isaac D. Moore.” It will be observed that, in the recital part of this proclamation, no one is named as the murderer, or as being charged with the murder, or as absconding before arrest, or as having escaped from custody either before or after conviction. The statute does not authorize the offer of a reward, under the conditions shown alike in the proclamation, and in the facts of this case.— Code of 1876, § 3976. If it be thought the statute should cover and provide for such a case as this, the remedy is not with us.

¶4The judgment is affirmed.

/65/ala/232 · .json · Public domain