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| **THE MERRIMACK
12 U.S. 317 ( 1814 ) 8 Cranch 317
PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Appellant captors sought review of a decree of the Circuit Court for the District of Maryland in favor of claimants, two merchants, a partnership, and several consignees, affirming a district court decree directing restitution of a ship's cargo captured as prize of war by a privateer during the War of 1812.
OVERVIEW: The captors contended on appeal that no transfer of the property had taken place at the time of the capture and that the shippers were British subjects. The court affirmed the decree in part and reversed it in part. The court was of opinion that some of the property was vested in the partnership and was consequently not liable to condemnation as enemy property. The court stated, as to the consignees, that as no change of property could take place until the consignees had acceded to new propositions and the capture had taken place before the contract was complete, those goods had to be considered enemy property. The court remarked that the goods ordered by the merchants were shipped to an agent for their use subject only to a right which unquestionably existed in the shippers, that in their letter to the merchants they enclosed a bill of parcels containing a positive acknowledgment of the sale, and that the letter itself as well as that to the agent spoke of the goods expressly as the merchants' goods. The court stated that the immediate consignee of those goods could thus only be considered as the bailee of the merchants.
OUTCOME: The court affirmed the parts of the circuit court decree that had affirmed the district court decree for the merchants and partnership and reversed those parts of the decree that had affirmed the decree for the consignees on appeal by the captors in the libel seeking condemnation of the cargo of a ship.
War of 1812 Us. Confiscation of British goods
Counsel: Harper for American consignees; Pinkney contra for claimants
Opinion: Marshall C.J, Dissent by Story J. joined by Judges WASHINGTON and TODD. |
