State v. . Carr , 71 N.C. 106 ( 1874 )

Settle, J.

The facts found by the special verdict constitute a misdemeanor, denounced both by the words and spirit of the Homestead Act, Bat. Rev., ch. 55.

The evasion or trick by which the defendant attempted to deprive the plaintiff of his personal property exemption, and at the same time avoid the penalties of the law for so doing, deserves the reprobation of the Courts. If the device here resorted to can be justified and sustained, then the homestead provision of the Constitution and the laws in pursuance thereof are not worth the paper on which they are written.

The defendant says the plaintiff did not claim the property. But he says it was the property of the plaintiff and he levied on it as such, and when the plaintiff asked for his legal exemption it was not for the defendant to play upon him the sharp practice of saying, yes, it is your property for the purposes of my levy, but it is not yours for the purposes of a legal exemption.

The pretended abandonment of the levy by the defendant, while refusing to put the plaintiff, as he found'him, in possession of his property, but leaving it in the hands of the plaintiff in the execution, is worse than mockery.

Let it be certified that there is error, to the end that the Superior Court may proceed to judgment upon the special verdict as upon a verdict of guilty.

Pee Oubiam. Judgment reversed.