Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1833

Mead v. Kilday

Mead v. Kilday
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · Decided October 15, 1833
2 Watts 110

Mead v. Kilday

Opinion of the Court

Per Curiam

The direction was clearly .wrong. Granting the property to have been in the plaintiff’s father, yet it was levied and sold under a judgment against him as an administrator. Under such a judgment it is clear that nothing but the assets of the dece*111dent can be levied ; and if these cannot be found, the administrator can be pursued personally only in an action for a devastavit. If,-as is suggested, the execution was against the administrator personally, it was void for want of a judgment to support it; and a sale on it could pass no title. Whether, then, the plaintiff had acquired the absolute ownership or not, he had, by the bailment, a qualified property which was sufficient to enable him to maintain the action; and the direction ought to have been that he was entitled to recover.

Judgment reversed, and a venire de novo awarded.

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