Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

71 N.H. 221

51 A 624

Weeks v. Fowler

Supreme Court of New Hampshire

Decided January 9, 1902

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1902-01-09

Replevin, against the defendant as trustee in bankruptcy of J. P. C. & Son, for store fixtures. Trial at the May term, 1901, of the superior court before Young, J. The court found a verdict for the plaintiff, and the defendant excepted.

Relies on Covell v. Heyman · Buck v. Colbath · White v. Schloerb

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1902-01-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently February 1932

4 state decisions

201902191019201930decided

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 →

Blodgett, C. J.

¶1 A fatal objection lies at the very threshold of the plaintiff’s case. The defendant’s possession of the replevied property under and by virtue of federal process in the bankruptcy proceedings is an impregnable defence to an action of replevin for the same property in the state court. White v. Schloerb, 178 U. S. 542, 547, and cases cited. True, this defence has not been inter *222 posed by the defendant; but, nevertheless, we cannot disregard it, for it is a fundamental principle —• a departure from which obviously would lead to the. utmost confusion and to endless strife- — ■ “ that whenever property has been seized by an officer of the court by virtue of its process, the property is to be considered as in the ■custody of the court and under its control for the time being, and that no other court has a right to interfere with that possession, unless it be some court which may have a direct supervisory control over the court whose process has first taken possession, or some superior jurisdiction in the premises.” Buck v. Colbath, 3 Wall. 334, 341, per Miller, J.; Covell v. Heyman, 111 U. S. 176, 180, and authorities generally.

¶2 The result is that the question in issue between the parties cannot be adjudicated in the present proceeding.

¶3 Exception sustained: verdict set aside.

All concurred.
/71/nh/221 · .json · Public domain