Opinion
10-08-1924
William A. WOODBURY, Complainant, v. C. Palmer WOODBURY, Defendant.
A. P. Bachman, of Newark, for complainant. Cohn & Cohn, of Newark, for defendant.
On Bill, etc., Oral Memorandum.
A. P. Bachman, of Newark, for complainant.
Cohn & Cohn, of Newark, for defendant.
CHURCH, V. C. (orally). The only question that I have to decide now is to whom the shares of the Distributors Company's stock belong. They evidently were turned over by Mr. William A. Woodbury to C. Palmer Woodbury, and they remained in Mr. Palmer Woodbury's are until some time when he hypothecated them to an innocent third party for value for a loan. On the one hand, there is merely the statement of Mr. William A. Woodbury that he deposited them for safe-keeping in Mr. Palmer Woodbury's safe deposit box. On the other hand, it was Mr. Palmer Woodbury who says that they were given as part of the transaction involving the 1,000 shares of the Woodbury Company. This is corroborated, perhaps not definitely, but in some measure, by the exhibits in Mr. William A. Woodbury's handwriting that have been received in evidence, but especially we have the testimony of Mr. Chittenden, who is, and has been for years, a prominent member of the New York bar, and whose veracity is beyond question. He says that Mr. William A. Woodbury admitted to him that these Distributors' shares were part of the Woodbury Company transaction. I think that the mere statement of Mr. William A. Woodbury is not sufficient, in the face of the other evidence, to justify me in requiring that this stock should be returned to Mr. William A. Woodbury as his property, and I will therefore deny that prayer. If counsel will prepare a decree in accordance with the findings that have been made this morning, I will advise it.