Morrill v. Keyes
Morrill v. Keyes
Opinion of the Court
Neither party having offered any evidence to control it, the auditor’s report must be taken as a correct statement of the facts of the case. The facts reported by him were incidentally connected with the statement of amounts, which he was required to make; and the finding of these facts was necessary to a proper statement. Locke v. Bennett, 7 Cush. 445. Quimby v. Cook, 10 Allen, 32.
The authority of the court to appoint an auditor in such cases is expressly given by Gen. Sts. c. 121, § 46 ; and, although the form of the order is not given in the exceptions, it is to be presumed that it authorized the auditor to pass upon all questions of fact thus connected with the purpose for which he was appointed. Besides, the defendant took no exception and raised no question in the superior court, as to the authority of the auditor to pass upon these facts. The only question brought here by the bill of exceptions is whether, upon the facts statea in the auditor’s report, the court could draw a different conclu sion from that which was arrived at by the auditor, and order judgment for a different amount.
The auditor reports a valid mortgage to secure an actual debt of $204.40, due to the plaintiff; an attachment, by the defendant’s deputy, of the property covered by the mortgage ; a proper demand upon the officer, and a subsequent sale by him, without-payment of the mortgage debt; the whole value of the millinery stock, $507.41; the value of goods purchased since the date of the mortgage, $156.73; value of goods covered by the plaintiff’s mortgage, $350.68 ; value of goods covered by a previous mortgage to James C. Abbott, $200; leaving as the value of “ the portion of said stock and merchandise included in the plaintiff’s
The intermingling of goods, which will defeat any recovery in such case, is not merely the placing of them in a store with other goods of like character, so that, after the whole stock has been sold by the officer and removed, sufficient evidence cannot be produced to distinguish the specific items for which the party is to be allowed in making up a statement by an auditor. It must be such an intermingling that the party cannot, with the aid of the mortgagor, and having the goods before them for examination, identify and point out .to the officer those which belong to himself, so as to enable the officer to comply with his demand, if he shall desire to do so, instead of paying the mortgage debt or permitting himself to be sued. It does not appear that there was any intermingling which would have occasioned any difficulty of that sort. On the contrary, the precision with which the auditor has been able to ascertain the value of the portions of the stock which were differently affected by the state of the title would indicate that, if the stock itself had been present, the articles composing it might have been separated with equal facility. And furthermore, it does not appear that the intermingling of the goods was of any importance to the rights of the
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.