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This proposition is established fully upon | he had a fee simple interest, which allegation principle. is wholly unfounded.

Den v. Dubois, 1 Harr. N. J. 291.

The plaintiff, as issue in tail, does not claim under Thomas Croxall, but per formam doni.

The partition thus made on March 5, 1819, between the four heirs apparent of Mary and Charles Croxall, is by nothing but deeds of mutual relief, which operated only on such title as the releasors then had.

4 Kent, Com. 7, side; 2 Prest. Est. 56; Co. Litt. 9 B. 273; 10 Pet. 211; 3 How. 409.

The defendant in error, Sherrerd, is but the assignee of the life estate of Thomas Croxall, and has only held over under that title since 1861.

Nor could the defendant as alienee of all Wall's title, as derived under the tenants for life and the first tenant in tail, Thomas Croxall, be regarded as holding adversely to the next heir in tail, at least until after 1861.

Bac. Abr. Estate Tail, D; 2 South. § 711; 1 Harr. 291; Coxe, 359; 10 East, 591, and 1 Root, 546; 8 Johns. 269.

A possession originating by a lawful title will not be presumed adverse as against remainder-men, by a silent holding over without a known disclaimer.

Zeller's Lessee v. Eckert, 4 How. 295; 2 G. & J. 183.

The defendant in error is not protected by the New Jersey statute of limitations. The statute of limitations of New Jersey does not bar our right under the twenty years limitation, because our title did not accrue until 1861, when Thomas, the first tenant in tail, died.

The adverse case cited from 7 Eng. C. L. Rep. 420, only establishes that an adverse possession of twenty years against the first tenant in tail will bar the next heir; but that does not reach our case, inasmuch as the defendant holds merely as assignee of Wall, who was assignee by a deed of quitclaim (or bargain and sale, if you choose), of the tenants for life, and the first tenant in tail under our title paper.

Undoubtedly, such an assignee cannot set up his possession as adverse when his grantors held in conformity with and under our title, being in fact only the occupier of a precedent estate. Nor is our case affected by the thirty years limitation in the New Jersey statute, as will be plainly seen on reference to the class of cases to which it applies.

The illegality of the private act, it is said, however, that conceding that Thomas Croxall would have been the first heir in tail, yet the legislature by the private act authorizing a partition, virtually annulled the entail and vested the heirs apparent with a title, where none existed before.

If this be true, then the legislature not only destroyed the entail created by the grantor, but confiscated the reversion in his heirs at law, and all this on the petition of private parties, some of whom only represented life estates, and others represented not even a scintilla juris, being but naked heirs apparent.

It is manifest that the legislature was imposed upon by the ex parte allegation made in the proceedings which led to the enactment of this private act.

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The petition of Thomas Croxall alleged that

The protest of the other parties erroneously asserts that the property belonged by the deed to the children, at the death of Mary.

The parties protesting withdraw the opposition, and the act for a division of Belvidere passed Feb. 14, 1818.

This act falsely assumes a clear estate tail in Charles and Mary Croxall and is based on their assent, they being, according to the assumption of the act, the tenants of the inheritance and willing that it should go at once to their children, by an act of partition, in consideration of the annuity mentioned. The legislature by this act used no language to prejudice the right of third parties, but merely authorizes a partition among the parties before it, assuming that they represented a vested inheritance. Now the presumption of law is that in private acts the legislature only binds the parties before it, and not strangers or third parties, and this act, on its face, breathes no aggressive spirit towards other parties.

No greater title can be conferred on the parties by a private act than they possessed before. Smith, Com. § 815; Hesse v. Stevenson, 3 Bos. & P. 578.

Private acts passed on petition of parties to be construed merely as private agreements. Smith, Com. § 815; 8 T. R. 468. Blackstone shows that consent of all parties having remote interest should be obtained. Smith, Com. § 816; 2 Bl. Com. 345. Private statutes do not bind strangers, anless they have a clause to that effect.

Smith, Com. § 817; 2 Bl. Com. 345; 4 Cruise Dig. 519; Jackson v. Catlin, 2 Johns. 263; Barrington's Case, 8 Coke, 136; 8 Johns. 388; 4 Mass. 140; 1 T. R. 93.

In this case, no party representing the inheritance was privy to the private act, nor were the trustees nor their representatives under the deed of 1793 consulted.

Peter Gordon was not substituted trustee, though asserted to be such.

But it was decided in Westby v. Kiernan, 2 Amb. 697, that a private act, passed to enable a tenant in tail to raise money out of the entitled estate, bound the issue in tail, and the remainder, because tenant in tail could have effected the same object by common recovery.

In New Jersey the tenant in tail cannot bar his issue, and he has no power to alienate, but during his life, nor was there, according to our construction, any person before the legislature representing any estate or interest greater than a life interest.

See Den v. Van Ripper, 1 Harr. (N. J.) 11, and 4 H. & McH. 6, as to fraud in the obtainment of a private act of the legislature.

In New Jersey the legislature has no right to take A's property and give it to B. Sax. Ch. 694.

Nor could this private act change the estates as held under the old deed of 1793. 10 Md. 144.

We do not deny the power of the legislature to abolish the entail; but we deny that they have so intended or expressed that intention by this act of legislation.

Nor will courts strain a private act to make

it devest the right of parties not uniting in the obtaining of the act.

But suppose we are wrong in our original position, that Thomas Croxall was the first tenant in tail under the true construction of the deed of 1793; then we maintain that the repealing act of 1820, so far as deeds were involved, only repealed the restriction of the act of 1784, and the estate tail descended in 1824 on Thomas Croxall as the second tenant in tail, and was not converted into a fee simple because the act which so converted it was then repealed. The repealing act of 1820 did not destroy the vested entail then in Mary; it released it, in its future descent, from the curtailing influences of the act of 1784, and passed the untouched entail to Thomas, as the next heir in tail, freed of the restraining influences of the act of 1784.

The court will appreciate the distinction between abolishing a vested estate tail in 1820 by a simple repealing act, and regulating its future descent untrammeled by the act of 1784, which was palpably but an act to limit, not to establish, estates tail.

of the United States for the district of New Jersey.

Whether under the deed of Robert Morris of the 15th November, 1793, Charles Croxall was tenant for life, remainder to Mary Croxall, his wife, for life, remainder to their son Thomas Croxall in tail-whether Mary Croxall was not the donee in tail under the rule in Shelley's Case, and if so, whether her estate was a legal or equitable one-and whether *Thomas [*281 Croxall was not the donee or first tenant in tail; and if he were the first or second tenant in tail, whether he took a legal estate by the operation of the statute of uses, then in force in New Jersey; or whether he took an equitable estate, the statute not executing the use created by the deed for his benefit, are questions not without difficulty, and upon which the views of some members of the court are not in harmony with those of others. As there are grounds of decision, not involving these inquiries, upon which we are all united in opinion, except one member of the court, as to one of the propositions, it is deemed proper to place our judgment upon those grounds and not to go beyond them. If Thomas Croxall, and not his mother, was the first tenant in tail, taking under the deed by purchase, and not by limitation, it is immaterial whether his estate was legal or equitable. In the law, if real property, the principles which apply to estates of both kinds, with a few limited exceptions not affecting this case, are the same. 2. Thomas Croxall, the presumptive heir in In the consideration of a court of equity, the tail and the other presumptive heirs of Mary cestui que trust is actually seised of the freeCroxall by the deed of March 15, 1823, given hold. He may alien it, and any legal conveyby them to Morris Croxall, and by their treat-ance by him will have the same operation in ment of the other shares, estopped themselves and their heirs from ever claiming the share set off to Morris, which includes the premises in question; and that, on the death of Mary Croxall, July 6, 1824, the fee simple which devolved to Thomas as her heir in tail fee, the estoppel, and conferred upon Morris Croxall (whose estate the defendant has) a fee simple absolute.

Messrs. Joseph P. Bradley and F. T. Frelinghuysen, for defendant in error:

1. The entailment imposed by the deed of 1793 was discharged, and the estate unfettered and converted into a fee simple by an act of the legislature passed in 1818, and the proceed ings and conveyances had and made under the

same.

3. From July 6, 1824, or at least from the death of Charles Croxall, November 6, 1831, the premises have been held adversely as against Thomas Croxall and the other heirs and their privies, of whom the plaintiff in ejectment is one.

This action being commenced September 8, 1863, the adverse possession continued uninterruptedly for nearly thirty-two years.

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4. Whether the possession had been adverse or not, and whether our construction of the deed of 1793 is correct or not, the defendant's case comes within the New Jersey statute of limitations passed in 1787, by which "Thirty years, actual possession, where such possession was obtained by a fair bona fide purchase, of any person in possession and supposed to have a legal right and title shall be a good and sufficient bar to all prior locations, rights, titles, conveyances, or claims whatever, not followed by actual possession as aforesaid, and shall vest an absolute right and title in the actual possessor and occupier."

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Mr. Justice Swayne delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a writ of error to the circuit court

equity upon the trust, as it would have had at law upon the legal estate. Burgess v. Wheate, 1 Eden, 226; Boeteler v. Allington, 1 Bro. Ch. 72.

The trust like the legal estate is descendible, devisable, alienable, and barrable by the act of the parties, and by matter of record. Generally, whatever is true at law of the legal estate, is true in equity of the trust estate. Cholmondeley v. Clinton, 2 Jacob & W. 148; Walton v. Walton, 7 Johns. Ch. 270; Doe v. Laming, 2 Burr. 1109; Philips v. Brydges, 3 Vesey, 127.

The rule in Shelley's Case applies alike to equitable and legal estates, Garth v. Baldwin, 2 Ves. 655; Pratt v. McCawley, 20 Pa. 264; Fearne, Remainders, 121; and an equitable estate tail may be barred in the same manner as an estate tail at law, and this end cannot be accomplished in any other way. Saunders, Uses, 280; Williams, Real Prop. 155.

*In Doe v. Oliver, 10 Barn. & C. 181, [*282 the testator had devised lands to his wife for life; remainder to the children of his brother who should be living at the death of his wife. But one child, a daughter, was living at that time. She with her husband, in the lifetime of the devisee of the life estate, levied a fine, and declared the use to A. B. after the death of the first devise, and the termination of her life estate.

A. B. brought an action of ejectment for the lands, and recovered. It was held that the fine had a double operation, that it bound the husband and wife by estoppel or conclusion, so long as the contingencies continued, and that, when the contingency happened, the estate which devolved upon the wife fed the estoppel,

that the estate by estoppel created by the fine | Thomas Croxall, and was born on the 29th of ceased to be an estate by estoppel only, and be- March, 1821. Fstates tail, under the statute came an interest, and gave to A. B. exactly de Donis, were, before the passage of the statwhat he would have had if the contingency had ute, known in the common law as con- [*284 happened before the fine was levied. If Mary ditional fees. Like estates tail, they were Croxall took under the deed an equitable con- limited to particular heirs to the exclusion of tingent remainder for life, and Thomas at her others. The condition was, that if the donee death would have taken a legal estate tail, if died, without leaving such heirs as were specithe estate still subsisted, the statute in his case, fied, the estate should revert to the grantor. executing the use, then the estates could not According to the common law, upon the birth coalesce, one being legal and the other equi- of such issue, the estate became absolute for table, and the rule in Shelley's Case would not three purposes: apply. In that view of the subject Thomas and not his mother was the donee in tail.

A use limited upon a use is not executed or affected by the statute of uses. The statute executes only the first use. In the case of a deed of bargain and sale, the whole force of the statute is exhausted in transferring the legal title in fee simple to the bargainee. But the second use may be valid as a trust, and enforced in equity according to the rights of the parties.

Doe v. Passingham, 6 B. & C. 305; Jackson v. Cary, 16 Johns. 304; Franciscus v. Reigart, 4 Watts, 108; Roe v. Tranmar, 2 Smith, Lead. Cas. 444; Gilb., Uses, Sugden's note, 1; Williams, Real Prop. 181.

But without pursuing the subject, let it be 283*] conceded, for the purposes of this case, that Thomas Croxall was the donee or first tenant in tail, and that he took a legal estate, as contended by the counsel for the plaintiff in

error.

Taking this view of the subject, the first inquiry to which we shall direct our attention is as to the effect of the act of the legislature of the 14th of February, 1818, and of the proceed ings which were had under it. All the parties in interest then in esse, were before the legislature, and asked for the act, or consented that it should be passed.

There is no ground for the imputation upon either of them of any fraud, indirection or concealment. It is not denied that the act was deliberately passed, nor that the partition made under it by the commissioners was fair and equal; all the parties testified their approbation, and confirmed it by their subsequent conveyances. The legal doubts and difficulties which hung over the deed; the uncertainty of the rights of the several parties; the learned and elaborate arguments, and conflicting views of the counsel, and our differences of opinion in this litigation, evince the wisdom and the equity of the act. It is as clear by implication as it could be made by expression, that the object of the legislature was to dock the entail, and unfetter the estate. What is implied is as effectual as what is expressed. U. S. v. Babbitt, 1 Black, 55, 17 L. ed. 94. If it were possible for the parties and the legislature to accomplish this object, it was thus done. Had they the power? When the deed was executed, the statute de Donis was in force in New Jersey, but modified by the acts of her legislature on the 25th of August, 1784, and of the 3d of March, 1786. Fines and recoveries, as known in the English law, were then a part of her judicial system. They were abolished by the act of June 12, 1799. By the act of 13th of June, 1799, it was declared that no British statutes should thereafter have any force within the state. The plaintiff's lessor was the son of

1. The donee could alien, and thus bar his own issue and the reversioner.

2. He could forfeit the estate in fee simple for treason. Before he could only forfeit his life estate.

3. He could charge it with encumbrances. He might also alien before issue born, but in that case the effect of the alienation was only to exclude the lord, during the life of the tenant, and that of his issue, if such issue were subsequently born, while if the alienation were after the birth, its effect was complete, and vested in the grantee a fee simple estate. Willion v. Berkley, 1 Plowd. 241.

In this state of the law it became usual for the donee, as soon as the condition was fulfilled by the birth of issue, to alien, and afterwards to repurchase the land. This gave him a fee simple absolute, for all purposes. The heir was thus completely in the power of the ancestor, and the bounty of the donor was liable to be defeated by the birth of the issue, for whom it was his object to provide. To prevent such results, and to enable the great families to transmit in perpetuity the possession of their estates to their posterity, the statute de Donis of the 13 Edw. I., known as the Statute of Westminster the 2d, was passed. It provided "that the will of the donor, according to the form in his deed of gift manifestly expressed, should be observed, so that they to whom a tenement was so given upon condition, should not have the power of alienating the tenement so given, whereby it might not remain after their death to their issue, or to the heir of the donor, if the issue should fail." Under this statute it was held that the donee had no longer a conditional fee governed by the rules of the common law, *but that the estate [*285 was inalienable, and must descend "per formam doni," or pass in reversion. The evils arising from the statute were found to be very great. Repeated efforts were made by the commons to effect its repeal. They were uniformly defeated by the nobility, in whose interest the statute was passed. It remained in force and was administered without evasion for about two centuries. In the reign of Edward IV. it was held in Taltarem's Case, 6 Y. B. 14, 19, that the entail might be destroyed by a common recovery. The effect of this process was to bar alike the issue, the reversioner, and all those to whom the donor had given other estates expectant on the death of the tenant in tail without issue. The demandant took an absolute estate in fee simple. 2 Bl. Com. 360; Cruise, Recoveries, 258. Fines were subsequently resorted to for the same purpose. A statute of 3 Hen. VIII. declared a fine, duly levied by the tenant in tail, to be a complete bar to him and his heirs, and all others claiming under the entail. Other incidents were subsequently, from time to time,

annexed to such estates. By a statute of Henry | terms of the statute. And there had been unVII. they were made liable to forfeiture for interrupted possession for more than the stat treason. At a later period they were made utory period of thirty years when the action liable for the debts of the tenant to the Crown, was commenced. due by record or special contract; and still later they were made liable for all his debts in case of bankruptcy. The power to suffer a common recovery has been invariably held to be a privilege inseparably incident to an estate tail, and one which cannot be restrained by condition, limitation, custom, recognizance or covenant. Taylor v. Horde, 1 Burr. 84, Knowles, Arg.; Dewett v. Eldred, 4 Serg. & R.

421.

Private acts of Parliament are one of the modes of acquiring title enumerated by Blackstone. They are resorted to when the power of the courts of justice is inadequate to give the proper relief and the exigencies of the case require the interposition of the broader power of the legislature. They were very numerous immediately after the restoration of Charles II. The validity of statutes affecting private in286*] terests *in specific real property has been repeatedly recognized by this court. Stanley v. Colt [ante, 502], No. 85 of this term.

Blackstone says: "Nothing also is done without the consent expressly given of all parties in being, and capable of consent, that have the remotest interest in the matter, unless such consent shall be perversely and without any reason withheld." 2 Bl. Čom. 345. Here all who were interested consented. No interest vested or contingent of the lessor of the plaintiff in error was involved; and no consent was asked of him for the reason that he was then unborn.

In Westby v. Kiernan, 2 Ambl. 697, it was held that a private act passed to enable the tenant in tail to raise money bound the remainder. This involved the power to destroy the estate by encumbering the property to the full amount of its value.

We entertain no doubt that the act in question was valid, and that the partition made under it, and the deeds subsequently executed, vested in each grantee a fee simple estate. This was the necessary result, whatever the quantity and character of the estates of Mary and Thomas Croxall at that time.

It is said that the possession of the defendant was subordinate to the ultimate right and title of the plaintiff's lessor, and was, in effect, his possession. This is not so. The defendant was a bona fide purchaser. Such a party holds adversely to all the world. He may disclaim the title under which he entered, and set up any other title and any other defense alike against his vendor and against others. Watkins v. Holman, 16 Pet. 54; Blight's Lessee v. Rochester, 7 Wheat. 548; The Society, etc. v. Pawlet, 4 Pet. 506; Jackson v. Huntington, 5 Pet. 402; Willison v. Watkins, 3 Pet. 43; Voorhees v. White's Heirs, 2 Marsh. 26; Winlock v. Hardy, 4 Litt. 274.

It is said also that the remainder to Thomas Croxall was contingent and expectant until the death of his father and mother; that nothing passed by his deed to Wall, and that the statute could not, under these circumstances, affect the rights of his heir in tail. Laying out of view the act of the legislature of 1818, and what was done under it, this is still an erroneous view of the subject. Thomas was living at the time of the execution of the deed of 1793, and took at once an estate vested in right, and deferred only as to the time of possession and enjoyment. It was in the latter respect only contingent and expectant. If this were not so, upon the death of the remainder-man before the vesting of the possession, his children could not inherit. Goodtitle v. Whitby, 1 Burr. 228.

The struggle with the courts has always been for that construction which gives to the remainder a vested rather than a contingent character. A remainder is never held to be contingent when, consistently with the intention, it can be held to be vested. If an estate be granted for life to one person—and any number of remainders for life to others in successionand finally a remainder in fee simple or fee tail,*each of the grantees of a remainder [*288 for life takes at once a vested estate, although there be no probability, and scarcely a possibility, that it will ever, as to most of them, vest in possession. Williams, Real Prop. 208.

Chancellor Kent says the definition of a vested remainder is thus fully and accurately expressed in the Revised Statutes of New York. It is, "when there is a person in being who would have an immediate right to the possession of the lands, upon the ceasing of the intermediate precedent estate."

It remains to consider the effect of the statute of limitations relied upon by the defendant in error. The 2d section of the act of the 5th of June, 1787, declares that thirty years' actual possession, where such possession was obtained by a fair and bona fide purchase of any person in possession, and supposed to have a legal right and title, shall vest an absolute right and It is the present capacity to take effect in title in the possessor and occupier. The deed possession, if the precedent estate should deof Morris Croxall to Garrell D. Wall bears date termine, which distinguishes a vested from a on the 30th of September, 1825. Wall con- contingent remainder. Where an estate is veyed to Sherrerd, the defendant, on the 5th of granted to one for life, and to such of his chilJanuary, 1827. The special verdict finds that dren as should be living after his death, a Wall took possession at the date of the deed to present right to the future possession vests at him from Morris Croxall, and held it until he once in such as are living, subject to open and conveyed to Sherrerd on the 5th of January, let in after-born children, and to be devested as 1827, and that Sherrerd was continuously in to those who shall die without issue. A repossession from that time down to the com- mainder, limited upon an estate tail, is held to mencement of the suit, "and that possession be vested, though it be uncertain whether it 287*] was obtained by the defendant by a will ever take effect in possession. Wendell v. fair and bona fide purchase of the lands in Crandall, 1 N. Y. 491; Doe v. Lea, 3 T. R. 41; question of a party in possession and supposed Moore v. Lyons, 25 Wend. 119; Doe v. Underto have a legal title thereto." The finding of down, Willes, 293; Etter's Estate, 23 Pa. 381; the jury brings the case exactly within the | Vanderheyden v. Crandall, 2 Den. 18; Boras

ton's Case, 3 Co. 19-51; 4 Kent, Com. 202; Williams, Real Prop. 207. A vested remainder is an estate recognized in law, and it is grantable by any of the conveyances operating by force of the statute of uses. Fearne, Remainders, 216; 4 Kent, Com. 205. Such an estate, if the entail had not been destroyed, passed by the deed of Thomas Croxall to Morris Croxall, by the deed of Morris Croxall to Garrett D. Wall, and by the deed of Wall to the defendant, Sherrerd. Whatever interest Charles Croxall had in the property after the death of his wife, passed by his deed of the 20th of September, 1825, to Wall, and from Wall, under the covenant of warranty in his

deed, to Sherrerd.

The special verdict having found that the defendant obtained possession by a bona fide 289*] purchase from a party in *possession, and supposed to have a valid title, the case is thus, in this view of the state of the title, brought again within the letter and as we think, within the meaning of the statute. The statute provides expressly that possession for the period of limitation shall vest in the occupant "an absolute right and title to the land." Such a title thus became vested in the defendant, Sherrerd. This would have been the effect of the bar without such a provision in the statute. Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black, 605, 17 L. ed. 263.

The statute contains no qualification or exception as to issue in tail, and we can interpolate none; nor can we review or reverse the finding of the jury. In Inman v. Barnes, 2 Gall. 315, Mr. Justice Story said: "I take it to be well settled that if the time limited has once run against any tenant in tail, it is a good bar, not only against him, but also against all persons claiming in descent per formam doni through him." In Wright v. Scott, 4 Wash. C. C. 24, this same statute came under the consideration of the court. The case involved entailed property. The court gave the same construction to the statute which we have given.

Mr. Justice Washington remarked that if such were not the proper construction the issue in tail could never be barred. In cases of this class, as in all others, when the statute has begun, it continues to run until its effect is complete. It proceeds to throw its protection over the property, and does not stop by the way for any intermediate right which may have arisen during the period of its progress. It allows no immunity beyond the savings which it contains. Such statutes are now favorably regarded in all courts. They are "statutes of repose," and are to be construed and applied in a liberal spirit.

Our construction of this statute is sustained by the analogies of the English and Massachusetts decisions respecting writs of formidon in descender under the statute of the 21 James I., and other statutes containing similar provisions. Ang. Lim. § 360. The law presents other analogies which tend strongly in the same direction. As between trustee and cestui que 290*] trust—a *joint tenant and a tenant in common, and their cotenants, the bar becomes complete when the period has elapsed, which the statute prescribes, after the commencement of open and notorious adverse possession. Ang. Lim. §§ 419, 436. We think the special verdict sustains conclusively this defense.

The judgment below was properly given for the defendant in error, and it is affirmed. Mr. Justice Miller, dissenting:

I concur in the judgment of the court, and in its opinion as to the first ground on which the judgment is based.

In that part of the opinion which declares the statute of limitations to be a good defense, I cannot concur. The facts conceded by both parties show, that until the death of Thomas Croxall, in 1861, the defendants and those under whom they claimed, had a lawful possession; and were at no time liable to an action to disturb that possession until that event; and

I do not believe that the statute of limitations

of New Jersey, or of any other country, or any rule of prescription, was ever intended to create a bar in favor of parties in possession, who were not liable to be sued in regard to that possession.

It was unnecessary to decide this proposition, that the defendants had a good title, in fee as the court were unanimous in the opinion simple, which needed no statute of limitations to protect it.

WILLIAM WATSON et al., Appts.

v.

GEORGE A. SUTHERLAND.

(See S. C. 5 Wall. 74-80.) When sufficient damages cannot be recovered at law, equity will grant injunction.

When loss of trade, destruction of credit and failure of business prospects are consequential damages, which would result from a trespass, for remedy is in equity, and an injunction may be iswhich compensation cannot be awarded at law, the sued.

So held in case of a levy of an execution on an

entire stock in trade of a merchant.

[No. 158.]

Argued Apr. 8, 1867. Decided Apr. 22, 1867.

A for the Maryland District in equity, continuing an injunction therefore granted at the suit of Sutherland, the appellee.

PPEAL from the decree of the Circuit Court

The bill was filed by Sutherland, a citizen of Maryland, against Watson and others, citizens of New York. Its purpose was to restrain the further execution of two writs of fieri facias issued by Watson and Magee and by Joeschigh and others, on judgments by them respectively recovered in the same court against Wroth & Fullerton; under which writs the marshal had seized the whole stock in trade of Sutherland in his store, No. 85 Baltimore street, by order of the judgment plaintiffs confederating therefor. It alleges that Sutherland was the sole and exclusive owner of the property on which the levy had been made, and that Wroth & Fullerton had not any interest whatever in it, directly or indirectly. It further charges that Sutherland had been in business at the store in question on his own sole account since October, 1862, and had by his industry and attention established for himself a large and increasing trade; that the stock levied upon, to the value of $20,000 or thereabouts, had been accumulated by him with a view to the business of

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