LeClear v. Perkins

61 N.W. 357, 103 Mich. 131, 1894 Mich. LEXIS 1121
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 18, 1894
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 61 N.W. 357 (LeClear v. Perkins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
LeClear v. Perkins, 61 N.W. 357, 103 Mich. 131, 1894 Mich. LEXIS 1121 (Mich. 1894).

Opinion

Long, J.

This is an action for damages for the malicious prosecution of a writ of attachment. The writ of attachment was issued and levy made February 24, 1891. It was dissolved by an order of Judge Adsit, of the Kent circuit, March 7, 1891. This suit was commenced October 19, 1893. The ground of issuing the attachment was that the defendant in the writ (plaintiff here) was about to assign and dispose of his property with intent to defraud his creditors.

Mr. Le Clear, the defendant in the writ, was a photographer at Grand Rapids, and was indebted to defendants in the sum of about $500. Before the%writ of attachment was sued out, a Miss Sherman, who was an employé of .Le Clear, came to Mr. Perkins, one of the defendants, and made certain statements as to Le Clear’s affairs. Mr. Perkins testified upon the present trial as to what was said on that occasion by Miss Sherman, as follows:

“ Q. State what, if any, conversation you had with Miss Sherman, leading to the attachment which you commenced.

“ A. Miss Sherman had spoken to me about getting her another position three or four days before this attachment. The attachment was commenced on Tuesday, February 24. On Saturday before the attachment, she came into the [133]*133store, and asked if I had heard of any position for her, .and it was then that this conversation took place in refer•ence to why she wanted to or was going away from Mr. Le Clear’s. She said it was because business was so dull that he could not keep her any longer. I asked her how ■dull the business was. She says, ‘We are doing next to nothing.’ I said: ‘How many negatives is that?’ She says, ‘A good many days we don’t make a negative, and in •one week was only one negative, and that was of some flowers.’ And I says, ‘ How is it that he can pay expenses ■on so little work as that?” and she said he could not, as she saw; she didn’t see how he could. And I said, ‘It looks to me as though our claim was in a pretty poor shape.’ ■She says, ‘How much is your claim?’ I told her it was a little more than $500. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t see how you are ever going to get it, because he Owes so much already, and his creditors are pushing him so hard for their claims that he has resorted to hiding from them, and asking me to state when they came that he is not there, when in fact he is. He has also expressed himself as afraid of you,— particularly so.’ I think, right then, I asked her why she was going to Cadillac, when I saw her a few days before, —if she had expected to get a job there, — and she said, ‘No; I was going on business there for Mr. Le Clear.’ I said, ‘What business for Mr. Le Clear up there?’ And she said, ‘To borrow money.’ I inquired from whom, and she told me a Dr. Ward, a friend of hers that was there, that loaned money sometimes. I asked her what security Le Clear proposed to give to this Dr. Ward, and she said, -‘A mortgage on the gallery.’

Q. Was the amount mentioned?

“A. Yes; I think that she said $1,250 was the amount he wanted; but she said he had failed to get that money, and that now he was going to Detroit, and asked her to wait until he could get back. I said, ‘ When is he going .to Detroit?’ She said, ‘In a day or two, but he don’t ■want me to let any one know that.’ And I said, ‘What ■.does that mean, — that he don’t want any one to know it? Does that mean mischief?’ ‘ Well,’ she says, ‘you can draw your own conclusion as to what it means.’ I says, ‘Don’t it look to you as though he intends to do something that he don’t want the creditors to know?’ She says,- ‘That is the way it looks.’ And I says, ‘What do you think that means?’ She says, ‘I think it means that he intends to transfer his gallery to his father.’ ‘ Why do [134]*134you think that?’ ' Because his father, when here a short-time before, told Frank that he would not help him one more dollar until he had either turned the gallery over to-him, or given him a mortgage for security;’ that Frank had refused to do that, on the ground that if the ' old man,’ as he called him, got hold of it, he (Frank) would be left out in the cold, and have nothing; and that he at-that time was expecting or hoped to get money from this-Cadillac party, but now that he had failed in that he was going to Detroit, as she believed, ‘ to turn his gallery over to him, as the last resort.’ Then I said: 'That would look as though it would bo necessary for me, in order to-secure myself,'to make some move, and that right away. Wouldn’t it to you?’ She says, 'Yes, I do. If you can secure yourself, I would do it; but, whatever you do, do-at once, because I believe if he goes to Detroit he will transfer the gallery, and you will never get a cent out of' your claim.’

“Q. I will ask you, Mr. Perkins, what information, if' any, at that time, you had, relative to the amount of Frank Le Clear’s indebtedness.

“A. I knew at that time - that he owed nearly all of these claims that he has testified' about himself, including—

“Q. From whom did you get your information?

“A. A great majority from Frank himself, and some from Miss Sherman at that time.

“Q. Did you get this from Frank in his conversation?

“A. No. He had been telling me at different times within the past, — we will say two or three months prior to this February 24, when I had been talking with him about paying our debt.

“Q. Did he volunteer the information in regard to other indebtedness?

“A. He had offered that as an excuse, where he had made some other payments, for not paying ours. Then I had quizzed him as to what he was owing, and found out that he was owing the Phoenix people, which I had no idea that he was owing; knew he had bought his house on a contract. And the Ocher & Ford matter, — I did not know anything about it until I asked him about it, what he was owing so much for, something like that.

“Q. Had you asked him about that, and received information about it, prior to this talk with Miss Sherman?

“A. Yes, sir.

[135]*135“Q. After that conversation, what was the next thing-you did, or what did you do, if anything, regarding the collection of that claim?

“A. This conversation took place on Saturday, — I have-referred to, — and Monday I went to Mess. Butterfield &• Keeney, and saw Mr. Butterfield, and told him all the-facts I have set forth here, as near as I can remember now, and I asked him if there was anything I could do-to protect myself against a loss in that case. Mr. Butter-field thought a few moments, and he says: fYes; you

can get out a writ of attachment. It is your only course to pursue.’

Q. "What was done then ?

“A. He then called Mr. Keeney, who had just come in, I think, from outside—

“ Q. That is his partner ?

“A. His partner — into, the office, and told him what had been said; and he says: ‘I have advised a writ of-attachment. What do you think of it?’ Mr. Keeney says, ‘I don’t see any other chance for him, or any other way for him to proceed.’ Mr. Butterfield says to him then to goon and draw up this writ;’ that he himself had to go, I think, to Lansing.

Q. Well, what was done?

“A. And Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
61 N.W. 357, 103 Mich. 131, 1894 Mich. LEXIS 1121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/leclear-v-perkins-mich-1894.