Richmond. BRENT &c. v. PEYTON. (Absent Cabell, P. and Brooke, J.) A feme sole owning slaves made a bill of sale of them for 500 dol- On the 8th of October, 1833, Mary H. P. Brent, a maiden lady then living in Orange county, made a bill of sale to her cousin Henry S. Peyton for five. slaves, for the consideration expressed therein of 500 dollars. The slaves consisted of a negro woman, her three children, and a girl named Eliza. 1843. February 1843. For the 500 dollars a bond was executed; but on February the same day Miss Brent made her will, whereby she Brent &c. gave the bond to Peyton. V. Peyton. Charles B. Quisenberry and another witness attested the bill of sale and the will, and the place of execution of both was Quisenberry's house in Orange. Frederick S. Peyton was by the will appointed executor. The testatrix, after making her will, removed to the residence of Henry S. Peyton, in Nelson county. She died soon afterwards. On the 26th of November, 1833, the will was offered for probat in the court of Nelson county, and the case continued until December court. Before December court, to wit, on the 4th of that month, Henry S. Peyton exhibited a bill, setting forth that at the time of the execution of the said instruments Eliza was in the possession of Quisenberry, but the negro woman and her children were in the county of Stafford; that a short time after the death of Miss Brent, Quisenberry, who was the husband of her sister, came to Nelson, but that immediately after her funeral, and before her will could be proved, he went to Stafford and took possession of the negro woman and her children, and together with one John Brent, who aided him in getting possession of them, had clandestinely removed them, or was then clandestinely removing them from the county of Stafford, and that he would probably sell them to a trader, or so secrete them as to put it out of the complainant's power to regain the possession of them. The bill prayed that Quisenberry and Brent might be made defendants; that they, and all others combining and confederating with them, might be injoined from selling or removing the said slaves out of the county where they then were; that a receiver might be immediately appointed to take possession of the said slaves and hold them in safe custody until the complainant's rights should be established to the satisfaction of the court, 1843. February or until the farther order of the court; that the said slaves might be restored to the complainant, and the Brent &c. said Quisenberry and Brent compelled to account for Peyton. the value of such as had been or might be sold by them or either of them; and for general relief. Judge Thompson, to whom the bill was presented, awarded an injunction, and directed his order to the clerk of the circuit court of Nelson. Process issued from that court, by the judge's order, directed to the sheriff of any county in the commonwealth. And the process was served by the sheriff of the county of Orange, in which county the defendants and the slaves were at the time of service. In the answers of the defendants, the jurisdiction of the court was objected to on two grounds: 1st, that if the plaintiff had a right to the slaves under the bill of sale, his remedy at law was complete; and 2dly, that the defendants were not residents of the county of Nelson, and never acquired or held possession of the slaves one moment of time in that county. The defendants set up no title to the slaves except through the decedent, and as her next of kin. They impeached the transactions of the complainant with the decedent for fraud and imposition, alleging that the decedent was incompetent to make a valid contract, because of her great imbecility of body and mind, and that she did not know the contents of the papers she was executing. Quisenberry also alleged, that at the time of his attestation, the complainant misrepresented to him the nature of those papers. On the 24th of December, 1833, the sentence of the County Court of Nelson was pronounced, refusing to admit the will to record. From this sentence the executor appealed. And on the 30th of September, 1834, the Circuit Court reversed the sentence, and ordered that the will be established. V. 1843. The next day, to wit, the 1st of October, 1834, the February injunction cause was heard, and the following opinion Brent &c. pronounced by the Circuit Court: V. Peyton. "The court is of opinion that in consideration of the pendency, in the courts of this county, of a contest for probat; in consideration that the bill of sale and will are so closely connected and interwoven in time, place, circumstances, and consideration moving to their execution, as to constitute but parts of one transaction, making even the bill of sale, with the parol agreement* therewith connected, though a contract as to some purposes, yet testamentary as to others; and in consideration of the fact that the defendant Charles B. Quisenberry was a subscribing witness to the bill of sale, and is now seeking to impeach his own attes tation that some court of equity had jurisdiction to interpose by injunction, and, under the circumstances of this case, that that jurisdiction attached to this court, notwithstanding the non-residence of the defendants and the absence of the property, relied on in the answers." Wherefore the court decreed that the injunction be made perpetual; that the defendants deliver up to the plaintiff the slaves mentioned in the bill; and that the said defendants render before a commissioner an account of the hires of the said slaves from the time they became possessed thereof. On the petition of the defendants Brent and Quisenberry, an appeal was allowed. *The language of the bill was as follows: "At the time of the execution of the deed aforesaid, your orator executed his note to the said Mary H. P. Brent for the sum of 500 dollars, the interest of which, during the life of the said Mary, he was to pay to her. But it being the intention of the said Mary that the principal of the note should not be exacted of him after her death, she made a will on the same day of the execution of the deed, by which she bequeathed him the amount of the note, or in other words released him the debt." February V. James Garland for the appellants. It is a standing 1843. and unyielding principle of equity, that where a party has a complete remedy at law, equity will not inter- Brent &c. pose. Story's Eq. Pl. 373; Mitford's Eq. Pl. 123; Peyton.. Cooper's Eq. Pl. 124; Beames's Pleas in Equity 79; Thornton & others v. Spotswood, 1 Wash. 142; Tarpley's adm'r v. Dobyns, 1 Wash. 185. This principle has been so rigidly adhered to, that in cases where parties had a just legal defence, but neglected to make it at law, equity has refused to interfere. Chapman &c. v. Harrison, 4 Rand. 336. What fact is stated inthe bill, that interposed the slightest obstacle to a complete remedy at law? Is it the apprehension that the appellants, on taking possession of the slaves, would remove them from the county of Stafford to some other county? This was This was no obstacle, because the remedy at law existed as well in one county as an-other. In whatever county the defendants were, they were amenable to the process of the court of that county; and the bill does not intimate that they intended any removal, either clandestinely or otherwise, out of the state. A suspicion is faintly expressed that the slaves would be sold to a trader; but even with this suspicion, the appellee does not intimate that the appellants would so remove their persons as to be out of the reach of the process of a Court of Law. II. The circuit courts, sitting in chancery, have jurisdiction over all persons and in all causes in chancery within their respective counties. Sess. Acts 1830-31, p. 47, § 22. The defendants were not, when the bill was filed, and never had been, residents of the county of Nelson; and the slaves were not, and never had been, in that county. The question of jurisdiction is not affected by the probate case. If the defendants had demurred to the bill for want of jurisdiction, the demurrer must have been sustained: the record of the probate case could not have been inVOL. I.-41 |