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7 Mass. 34

Penhallow v. Dwight

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided September 15, 1810

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1810-09-15

<p>An officer, having an execution against one, may lawfully enter the close of the debtor, and cut down, seize and sell, as personal estate, corn or other product of the soil there growing, when ripe and in a fit state to be gathered.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““An entry, for the purpose of taking unripe corn, or other produce which would yield nothing, but in fact be wasted and destroyed, by the very act of severing it from, the soil, would not be protected by this decision.””

quoted by 2 later decisions, including First National Bank v. Evans, Tipton v. Martzell

Cited in Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Assets”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1810-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently December 1931

1 district · 12 state decisions

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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 →

Curia.

¶1As the defendant had the right, and indeed was obliged, by the duty of his office, to enter the close of the plaintiff, and to seize any personal property of the plaintiff, whereby he might satisfy the execution he then held against the plaintiff; the only question is, whether corn, then in a proper state to be gathered, but found standing, might lawfully be cut down and disposed of, to raise the tnoney due upon the execution. And we have no doubt that corn, or any other product of the soil, raised annually, by labor and cultivation, is personal estate; and would go to the executor, and not to the heir, on the decease of the proprietor. It is therefore liable to be seized on execution, and may be sold as other personal estate.

¶2An entry, for the purpose of taking unripe corn, or other produce which would yield nothing, but in fact be wasted and destroyed, by the very act of severing it from the soil, would not be protected by this decision.

¶3Let the defendant have judgment for his costs, (a)

¶4 [Com. Dig. Execution, (C. 4,) 1 Salk. 368. — Whipple vs. Foote. 2 Johns. Rep. 418. — Hartwell vs. Bissell, 17 Johns. Rep. 128.—Ed.]

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