Gulledge v. Slayden-Kirksey Woolen Mills

Citations

• 75 Miss. 297

Syllabus

<p>1. Replevin. Purchase effected by fraud.</p> <p>If a defendant, by false and fraudulent representations, has induced plaintiff to consent to a sale of his goods, and to part with the possession thereof, the latter may maintain replevin against the former for their recovery.</p> <p>2. Same. Bona fide purchaser. Pre-existing debt.</p> <p>And such action can be maintained against one having no better claim to the property than the fraudulent purchaser. A deed of trust executed by the fi-audulent purchaser on the goods, to secure a pre-existing debt, there being no other or new consideration, does not constitute the trustee or beneficiaries therein bona fide purchasers, and the action can be maintained against them.</p> <p>3. Same. Fraudulently effected sale. Secret intentions.</p> <p>If a person induce another to consent to a sale of goods, and to part with their possession, by a written representation of the former’s financial condition, purporting, by its terms, to be a statement of all his liabilities and assets, which is false in that his liabilities were much larger than stated in the writing, he cannot defeat the latter's action of replevin for the goods by proof that he did not intend to defraud, or that he did not intend the writing- should be a statement of all his liabilities. In such case it is not competent to prove a secret and unexpressed intention in respect to the writing.</p> <p>4. Same. Instruction.</p> <p>It is not error, in replevin for goods purchased by defendant in fraud, to refuse him an instruction to the effect that if only a certain number of the articles were so purchased, and the jury could not determine how many of these, if any, were seized by the officer under the writ, that they should find for the defendant. Such an instruction would deny plaintiff a recovery for such articles seized as were conceded to have been so purchased.</p>