Joseph Story

“ But, when an individual, acting in pursuance of what he conceives a just claim to property, proceeds by legal process to enforce it, and causes a levy to be made on what is claimed by another, without abusing or perverting its true object, there is and ought to be a very different rule, if, after a due course of legal investigation, his case is not well founded. ”

“ It has long since been well settled, that a jury ought in no case to find exemplary damages against a public officer, acting in obedience to orders from the government, without any circumstances of aggravation, if he violates the law in making a seizure of property. ”

“ There is no doubt that if the importer has the general right and property in the goods, that right draws after it a constructive possession, and the master of the ship is but a bailee, maintaining that possession for his benefit. And there is no pretence to say that the property of the importer in the goods is divested by any possession subsequently taken by the United States after the arrival of the goods, for the purpose of maintaining their lien for duties. ”

“ I am therefore of opinion, that you cannot, in assessing damages in this case, allow any of the items claimed by the plaintiffs for disbursements; they being consequent losses only, and not the actual or direct injury to their property which they have sustained by its seizure and detention, for which alone they are entitled to recover damages in this case, it not being attended with any circumstances of aggravation on the part of the defendant. ”

“ The general rule of damage, is the value of the property taken, with interest from the time of the taking down to the trial. This is generally considered as the extent of the damages sustained, and this is deemed legal compensation, which refers solely to the injury done to the property taken, and not to any collateral or consequential damages, resulting to the owner by the trespass. ”

“ It might be a good principle to allow them in both cases; but I find none such established, so as to have become a rule which can be laid down to you as the existing law of the action of trespass. It is all important, that in matters of this kind, the principle which governs them should be fixed and uniform. If we once begin to diverge from the old line, it will be difficult to draw and define a new one with accuracy. It may be thought a hardship that the plaintiffs shall not be allowed their actual disbursements in recovering this property ”

“ That possession of the goods being, at the time of the levy made by the defendant, legally in the United States, and neither actually nor constructively in the plaintiffs, the present action, founded as it must be upon a possession by the plaintiffs either actual or constructive, cannot be maintained. ”

“ But where the party, taking the property of another by legal process, acts in the fair pursuit of his supposed legal right, the only reparation he is bound to make to the party who turns out ultimately to be injured, is to place him, as to the property, in the same situation in which he was before the legal trespass was committed. ”

“ But this case does not even present that peculiarity; for the seizure of the goods was not under any authority to take possession in order to secure the duties, but it was made by the defendant, as marshal, to satisfy an execution against Edward Thomson, who had at the time no property or interest in the goods. The act was, therefore, the common case of an unlawful seizure and levy of one man's property to satisfy an execution against another man; and in such a case, trespass is clearly a fit and appropriate remedy. ”

“ That Edward Thomson as the importer, and the original consignee and owner, were the only persons entitled by law to enter the goods at the custom-house, or give bonds for the duties, or to pay the duties: and that any recognition by the collector or other public officer, of any other person, as entitled to enter, is not authorised by the law of the United States, and cannot be admitted to vary the rights of the parties. ”

“ If, in your opinion, they afford evidence of their real value, or if you are satisfied from the evidence you have heard that the seizure and storing of these teas had the effect of depressing the prices, you may make such additions to the prices at which sales were actually made, as would make them equal to what they would have been, had they come to the possession of the plaintiffs at the time of the levy. ”

“ The plaintiffs were both owners and consignees. The consignment of the homeward cargo was to order; and the plaintiffs, in virtue of the assignment, and the indorsement and possession of the bills of lading and the other transactions stated in the case, became consignees as well as owners of the homeward cargo; and as such were already entitled to enter the same, and to have delivery thereof upon giving bonds in conformity with the provisions of the duty collection act of 1799, ch. 128. The thirty-sixth and sixty-second sections of that act clearly confer the right ”

“ That on the 1st of May 1828 the plaintiffs received forty thousand dollars, paid to him by the defendant, in full satisfaction of the trespasses and wrongs complained of. 2. That at the April sessions of the court 1826, the plaintiffs impleaded him in a plea of trespass to the plaintiffs, damages forty thousand dollars, and on the 30th of April 1828, by judgment of the court, recovered the same, which is the same trespass complained of in this declaration, which judgment remains in full force ”