Strong v. White

19 Conn. 238
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedJuly 15, 1848
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 19 Conn. 238 (Strong v. White) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Strong v. White, 19 Conn. 238 (Colo. 1848).

Opinion

Storks, J.

The principal question in this case, is, whether the bequest to the defendant, James W. White, of the testator’s “ moveable property,” embraced the judgment against Stewart.

The law attaches no technical or artificial meaning to that phrase : and we must therefore construe it according to its ordinary signification, unless there is something in the other parts of the will, which shows, that the testator intended to use it in a different sense. But we find nothing elsewhere in that instrument, which sheds any light on the subject in this respect. The popular meaning must therefore prevail. The adjective moveable, applied to property, signifies, in its ordinary and proper sense, that which is capable of being moved, or put out of one place into another. It therefore necessarily implies, that such property has an actual locality, and is susceptible of locomotion, or a change of place. But this is predicable of that only which is corporeal and tangible. A judgment is obviously not of this character; since, like other choses in action, it is, in its nature, incorporeal, and therefore has no real locality ; although, as we shall hereafter have occasion to perceive, judgments sometimes have, in contemplation of law, for certain purposes, (not applicable to the point now before us,) a fictitious or imaginary locality assigned to them, and are deemed to exist in a particular place.

It is however insisted, that the word moveable, applied as an epithet to property, is equivalent to the word personal: and in support of this claim, we are referred to Blackstone. This position, however, so far from being supported, is discountenanced by that writer. In his chapter describing the nature and kinds of personal property, (2 Comm. 383.) he commences, by stating, that “ under the name of things per[246]*246sonal, are included all sorts of things moveable, which may atienda man’s person wherever he goes:” and he subsequently adds : “ But things personal, by our law, do not only include things moveable, but also something more ; the whole of which is comprehended under the name of chattels.” He then proceeds to show, that this last term signifies not only goods or moveables, but whatever was not a feud, and adds : “ It is in this latter, more extended, negative sense, that our law adopts it : the idea of goods or moveables only, being not sufficiently comprehensive to take in every thing that the law considers as a chattel interest.” From this passage it is quite plain, that he did not deem the phrases moveable property and personal property to be equivalent; bui, on the contrary, that he considered moveable property to be only one of the several species of personal property.

When Judge Black stone, speaking of what is included in personal property, mentions “ moveables which may attend a man’s person,” &c. it is, we think, moreover, plain from the context and his subsequent enumeration, (on page 387.) of what he intended to embrace by that expression, that he used it in its literal, primitive sense, as indicating that particular species of personal property, which consists of tangible, corporeal, locomotive chattels, and not choses in action, to which it 'would apply only in an imaginary, artificial, legal sense : a chose in action having, as it is sometimes expressed, no corpus, but being a mere right, not in a thing (in re,) but to a thing, (ad rem,) and having, therefore, no actual locality: which right is indeed often evidenced by a written instrument, although such instrument does not constitute right itself, nor in any sense, the property therein. Indeed, those instruments, such as bonds, bills and notes, were not, at common law, the subjects of larceny, because they were not deemed to be of any intrinsic value. Calye's case, 8 Co. 33. 1 Hawk. P. C. c. 33. s. 55. 4 Bla. Com. 234. Nor do we find any case, in which they give a locality to the debts evidenced by them, so that those debts pass by a general bequest of property described as being situated in the place where those instruments happen to be. On the contrary, it is held, that a bill of exchange, mortgage, bond, or banker’s receipt, do not pass, by a bequest of all the testator’s property in a particular house, where those instruments are ; and the [247]*247reason given is, that bills, bonds, «fee. are mere evidence of title to things out of the house, and not things in it. Fleming v. Brooke, 1 Scho. & Lef. 318. Lambert v. Lambert, 11 Ves. 607. So a bequest of in-door moveables has been held not to include notes and other choses in action. Penniman v. French, 17 Pick. R. 404. We cannot suppose, that Judge Blackstone intended to convey a different idea from that which we have imputed to him, by those general and casual expressions to which we have been referred, in other portions of his commentaries, which, although not perhaps critically exact, were sufficiently so, for the purpose for which he introduced them in that elementary work, but were not designed to have any reference or application to such a point as the one now before us. See 1 Stephen’s Com. 156. 2 Id. 65. part 2. ch. 1. Co. Litt. 118. b. 1 Atk. 183. Com. Dig. tit. Biens. D. 2.

The same remark also applies to the quotations, which have been made, by the defendants, from other elementary writers.

We have looked in vain at the cases on the subject of devises, to find any judicial construction of the particular phrase “ moveable property,” used in the bequest here in question, either as connected or not with the other language of the will, in reference to the question whether choses in action are thereby embraced. In Sparke v. Denne, however. (Win. Jones’ Rep. 225.) is a determination upon the meaning of a bequest, the language of which is exactly synonymous with that phrase, and where, as in the present case, the construction of it was not aided by any other part of the will. The testator, in that case, after devising several pecuniary legacies to several persons, devised the residue “ of all my moveable goods and chattels” to his wife. The question was, whether debts due on bond to the testator, at the time of his decease, passed by that bequest ; and it was held, after much argument and consideration, that they did not. The court say, that “ by the devise of ‘ all my moveable goods and chattels,’ debts, which are jura, [rights or choses in action,] are not devised.” The words “ moveable property,” used in the devise before us, and the words “ moveable ¿roods and chattels,” used in the devise in that case, are precisely equivalent, both phrases having relation to personal property. If, therefore, the Bequest is restricted, by the word moveable, in one [248]*248case, it must be in the oilier. It is well settled, that a bequest -of “all my goods and chattels,” is sufficiently comprehensive to embrace every species of personal property, and consequently, choses in action ; but it was there held to be restricted, by the term moveable, so as to exclude debts ; that word having been construed, according to its ordinary and proper meaning, as applying only to tangible personal property. This case, therefore, is in point; and we find no other that is inconsistent with it.

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Bluebook (online)
19 Conn. 238, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/strong-v-white-conn-1848.