Miller v. Bagwell

14 S.C.L. 429
CourtCourt of Appeals of South Carolina
DecidedJanuary 15, 1826
StatusPublished

This text of 14 S.C.L. 429 (Miller v. Bagwell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miller v. Bagwell, 14 S.C.L. 429 (S.C. Ct. App. 1826).

Opinion

Nott, J.

This case was brought before the circuit judge upon several pleas and demurrers, all of which are now submitted to this court. The demurrers to the second plea was overruled by the judge below; and a motion is now made to reverse the decision. It must be admitted that the only evidence of authority upon which the sheriff could exact, the [433]*433bond in question, from the principal obligor, would be a writ of capias ad satisfaciendum. Such a writ would have authorized him to have confined him within the four-walls of the jail, and therefore authorized the taking of the bond. I say that is the only evidence, because the sheriff having held that as the authority upon which he proceeded, he could not justify himself, by the adduction of any other. Thé bond was therefore given to save the defendant from actual imprisonment. A bond exacted by any individual under similar circumstances, would have been voidable on the ground of duress. But taken by a public officer, under the garb of legal authority, it was not only voidable, but it was an act of oppression, which ought to subject the officer to the severest animadversions of the law. It is no excuse, to say that it was done through ignorance, or inadvertence. The law has too great a regard for the liberty of its citizens, to suffer it to be violated with impunity, by the ignorance or carelessness of its agents. If, therefore, the facts stated in the plea are true, !! that he was not in custody by virtue of a ca. sa. and that no such ca. sa. had ever issued against him,” and the demur* rer, admits them to be true, the sheriff acted without authority. The bond is therefore void, and the defendants are entitled to the benefit of their pleas. It would be strange, passing strange, indeed it would be a reproach to our law if it were otherwise. The ground which is taken in support of the demurrer, is that the defendants are estopped, by the recital in the condition of the bond, from alleging that there was no ca. sa. This principle is attempted to be supported by the cases of Shelley and Wright, Willes 9. Cossens and Cossens, Do. 25. and Willoughby and Brocks, Cro. Eliz. 556-7. But these cases do not support the doctrine. It is a general rule of law and a correct one too, that a man cannot aver against his own deed. But that is where he has alleged some particular fact within his own knowledge, and which forms a part of the consideration for his undertaking, and that is the whole extent to which .the cases relied on go. But the [434]*434principle cannot be extended to an' aligation coming from the other party, and which can necessarily be known only to him, although contained in the recital of a deed made by the defendants In the case of Hayne vs. Maltby, 3 D. and E. 438, it appears that the defendant had purchased the privilege of using a certain patent machine from the pretended patentee. He had entered into certain covenants reciting the right of the plaintiff to the patent and obliging himself to employ the machine, with certain restrictions. This was an action for a breach of some of those covenants. The defendant pleaded among other things that the plaintiff had no right. The plaintiff demurred, as in this case, on the ground that the defendant was estopped by his deed from putting that matter in issue. Lard Kenyon said, “ now in point of conscience it is impossible that two persons can entertain different ideas upon the subject. But it is said that though conscience fails, the defendant is estopped in point of law from saying that the plaintiff had no privilege to confer. But the doctrine of estoppel is jiot applicable here. The person supposed to be estopped is the very person imposed upon.” Í 3 D. and E. 438.) Does not every word of that learned judge apply to this case. The plaintiff a public officer, pretending to be clothed with legal authority, arrests the defendant, and is about to throw him into jail. He resorts to the only refuge which the law affords, which was the bond in question, and which we must presume was dictated by the sheriff himself; for the defendant could have had no hand in making the terms. And now because he has introduced into it an alligation that he had a ca. sa. which authorized the proceeding (although he admits the alligation to be false) he contends that the person thus imposed upon and oppressed is estopped from denying it; for it is to be observed that this is an alligation coming from the sheriff and not from the defendant. He could not find under what authority the sheriff acted, but by his own representation. A person is only estopped front doing his own acts, but not [435]*435the acts of another. If a man sell land to which he has no title, and afterwards acquire a title, he shall be estopped by his deed from disputing the title which he has rnade.

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Bluebook (online)
14 S.C.L. 429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-bagwell-scctapp-1826.