Dixon v. White Sewing M. Co.

Citations

• 128 Pa. 397
• 18 A. 502
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 800

Syllabus

<p>1. The common law requirements of a valid levy have not been relaxed in Pennsylvania, further than to hold that a levy, made in sight or within potential control of the goods, only, is valid, if followed up by actual possession taken within a reasonable time.</p> <p>2. The interest of a debtor in goods bailed or demised by him may be taken in execution and sold as such, but a levy upon the goods bailed or demised themselves is a sufficient disturbance of the bailee’s possession to constitute a trespass, though the goods be not actually taken.</p> <p>3. To maintain trespass for a mere levy upon the goods of a stranger, the plaintiff must have had, at the time of the levy, either actual possession or the right to take possession; but, for a sale of the goods, an action may be supported upon a reversionary or conditional right of possession.</p> <p>4. If goods levied upon be claimed by a stranger, the sheriff may either abandon the levy or restrict it to defendant’s interest, and may correspondingly alter his levy, the return which he shall make being within his own control, provided it be appropriate in form and sufficient in law.</p> <p>5. This control of the sheriff over his return continues even after the return day, so long as the wilt remains in his hands, and until the final act of filing it in court; but delay in filing it until after lis mota takes away the presumption in the sheriff’s favor to which ordinarily the return is entitled.</p>