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81 Ala. 161

Jones v. Franklin

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1886

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1886-12-15

Tried before the Hon. John P. Hubbard. The horse in question was levied on by the sheriff as the property of J. L. Jones,, the defendant in the cause, to satisfy an execution issued upon a judgment obtained by plaintiff, Franklin, against said J. L. Jones.

Relies on Jackson v. Bain · Elliott v. Stocks & Bro. · Shahan v. Herzberg, Simpson & Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1886-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently November 1943

9 state decisions

201886189019001910192019301940decided

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.

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SOMERVILLE, J.

¶1— Our decisions have settled the following rules as applicable to every trial of the right of property in an issue framed under the statute, between the plaintiff in execution or attachment, and the claimant of the property. — Code, 1876, §§ 3343, 3290.

¶2(1) . The onus of proof is, in the first instance, on the plaintiff to make out a prima, facie case that the property levied on is the property of the defendant in execution — he being required by the statute to assume the affirmative of this issue. — Code, 1876, §§ 3342, 3343; Jackson v. Bain, 74 Ala. 328.

¶3(2) . This onus is discharged sufficiently when it is shown by the plaintiff that the defendant in execution was in possession of the property, at the time of the levy, such' possession being presumptive evidence of title. — Jackson v. Bain, supra; Shahan v. Herzberg, 73 Ala. 59.

¶4(3) . When the case assumes this status, the claimant is not permitted to show an outstanding title in a stranger, between whom and himself there is no privity, for the pur*163pose of defeating the plaintiff’s execution. He must show a legal title in himself, suph as would support an action of detinue for the property, or else fail in his claim suit — the possession of the defendant, to whose right the plaintiff succeeds, being superior to a -want of both title and possession in bimself. Unless the satisfaction-of the execution is inconsistent with the claimant’s rights, it is immaterial to bim that a stranger’s rights, with whom he has no privity, may be invaded. — Foster v. Smith, 16 Ala. 192; Frow v. Downman, 11 Ala. 880; Shahan v. Herzberg, 73 Ala. 59; Elliott v. Stocks, 67 Ala. 290; Loeb v. Manassas, 78 Ala. 555 ; Block v. Mass, 65 Ala. 211.

¶5The rulings of the court are consistent with these principles, and the judgment must be affirmed.

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