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68 Ala. 378

Corbitt v. Reynolds

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1880

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1880-12-15

Tried before Hon. H. D. Clayton. This was an action of trover, brought by the appellee against the appellant for the recovery of damages for the alleged conversion of two bales of cotton.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““To support the action, it was necessary for the plaintiff to prove property in himself, and a right to the possession at the time of the conversion by the appellant.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Story v. Robinson

Relies on Hussey v. Peebles · Graham v. Lockhart · Lomax v. LeGrand & Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently February 1953

12 state decisions

4018801890190019101920193019401950decided

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 →

BBIOKELL, C. J.

¶1The present action, in which the ap-pellee was plaintiff, and the appellant was defendant, is trover for the conversion of two bales of cotton. To support the action, it was necessary for the plaintiff to prove property in himself, and a right to the possession at the time of the conversion by the appellant.—Glaze v. McMillion, 7 Port. 279; Kemp v. Thompson, 17 Ala. 9; Nations v. Hawkins, 11 Ala. 859. If it had been material to establish the existence of the debt owing TJrquhart for the rent of land, transferred by the mortgage to the appellee, it would have been permissible to show by parol, that though described in the mortgage as a note, it was owing by parol, and not by note. It is the debt, and not merely the evidence of it, which is transferred, and parol evidence would be admissible to identify it, *380however erroneous may be the description of it in the mortgage.—Posey v. Decatur Bank, 12 Ala. 802; Graham v. Lockhart, 8 Ala. 9; Morrison v. Taylor, 21 Ala. 779.

¶2The transfer of the debt passed however simply an equity, substituting the appellee to the rights and to the place of the transferror. No title to any particular cotton could have passed to the mortgagor until there was a delivery of it to him by the tenant; nor would any title pass to the appellee as transferree, until such delivery was. made to him. There was a lien on the entire crop, whether of corn, cotton, or other annual products, for the payment of the debt, which were produced by the tenant in the current year. This lien has in it, however, no element of property ; neither the landlord, nor the transferree of the debt for the rent, has a jus in re, or a, jus adrem, and, therefore, neither of them can maintain trover against 9. wrong-doer, who may convert the crop. Folmar v. Copeland, 57 Ala. 588. Whether under the facts shown, an action on the case could be maintained, we do not consider, as the complaint has no count in case.—Hussey v. Peebles, 53 Ala. 432; Lomax v. Le Grand, 60 Ala. 537.

¶3It is not necessary to pass severally upon the rulings of the Circuit Court to which exceptions were taken. There was error in several of them in this view of the case.

¶4Reversed and - remanded.

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