Pledge

In the law of bailment. A bailment of goods to a creditor as security for some debt or engagement. A bailment or delivery of goods by a debtor to his creditor, to be kept till the debt be discharged. Story, Bailm. § 7; Civ. Co.de La. art. 3133; 2 Kent, Comm. 577; Stearns v. Marsh, 4 Denio (N. Y.) 229, 47 Am. Dec. 248; Sheridan v. Presas, 18 Misc. Rep. 180, 41 N. Y. Supp. 451; Bank of Rochester v. Jones, 4 N. Y. 507, 55 Am. Dec. 290; Eastman v. Avery, 23 Me. 250; Belden v. Peridns, 78 III. 452; Wilcox v. Jackson, 7 Co.lo. 521, 4 Pac. 966; Gloucester Bank v. Worcester, 10 Pick. (Mass.) 531; Lillenthal v. Ballou, 125 Cal. 183, 57 Pac. 807. Pledge Is a deposit of personal property by way of security for the performance of another act. Civ. Code Cal. § 2986. The specific article delivered to the creditor in security is also called a "pledge" or "pawn." There is a clear distinction between mortgages and pledges. In a pledge the legal title remains in the pledgor; in a mortgage it passes to the mortgagee. In a mortgage the mortgagee need not have possession; in a pledge the pledgee must have possession, though it be only constructive. In a mortgage, at common law, the property on non-payment of the debt passes wholly to the mortgagee; in a pledge the property is sold, and only so much of the proceeds as will pay his debt passes to the pledgee. A mortgage is a conditional conveyance of property, which becomes absolute unless redeemed at a specified time. A pledge is not strictly a conveyance at all, nor need any day of redemption be appointed for it. A mortgagee can sell and deliver the thing mortgaged, subject only to the right of redemption. A pledgee cannot sell and deliver his pawn until the debt is due and payment denied. Bouvier. There are two varieties of the contract of pledge known to the law of Louisiana, vim, pawn and antichresis; the former relating to chattel securities, the latter to landed securities. See Civ. Code La. art 3101; and see those titles.

— Pledges of prosecution. In old English law. No person could prosecute a civil action without having in the first stage of it two pr more persons as pledges of prosecution ; and; If judgment was given against the plaintiff, or he deserted his suit, both he and his pledges were liable to amercement to the king pro falso ala-more. In the course of time, however, these pledges were disused, and the names of fictitious persons substituted for them, two ideal persons, John Doe and Richard Roe, having become the common pledges of every suitor; and now the use of such pledges is altogether discontinued. Brown.

— Pledges to restore. In England, before the plaintiff in, foreign attachment can issue execution against the property in the hands of the garnishee, he must find "pledges to restore," consisting of two householders, who enter into a recognizance for the restoration of the property, as a security for the protection of the defendant; for, as the plaintiff's debt is not proved in any stage of the proceedings, the court guards the rights of the absent defendant by taking security on his behalf, so that if he should afterwards disprove the plaintiff's claim he may obtain restitution of the property attached. Brand. For. Attachm. 93; Sweet.