Bell v. State
63 Tenn. 426 (1874)
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Rule of Law:
For the theft of an object attached to real property to constitute larceny, the act of severing the object from the land and the act of carrying it away must be two separate and distinct acts, not one continuous transaction.
Facts:
- G. B. White was the owner of a garden containing cabbage and sweet potatoes.
- A person entered White's garden at night with the intent to steal vegetables.
- The person dug up sweet potatoes from the ground and cut cabbages, severing them from the earth.
- Immediately following the severance, the person picked up the vegetables, placed them in a bag, and carried them away.
Procedural Posture:
- The defendant was charged with petit larceny for stealing cabbage and sweet potatoes belonging to the prosecutor, G. B. White.
- The case was tried before a jury in the Criminal Court of Montgomery County, a trial court.
- At the November Term of 1874, the jury returned a verdict convicting the defendant.
- The court sentenced the defendant to one year in the penitentiary.
- The defendant, as plaintiff in error, appealed the conviction to the state's highest court, arguing that the trial judge's jury instruction defining larceny was erroneous.
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Issue:
Does the act of severing crops from the land and immediately carrying them away in a single, continuous transaction constitute the crime of larceny?
Opinions:
Majority - Dealerick, J.
No. The act of severing crops from the land and immediately carrying them away constitutes a trespass, not larceny. The court reasoned that larceny requires the felonious taking of personal property. Items attached to the land, such as growing crops, are considered real property. When they are severed, they become personal property, but if the asportation (carrying away) is part of the same continuous act as the severance, the entire event is legally considered a single act of trespass against the realty. To qualify as larceny, there must be a distinct interval of time between the act of severance and the subsequent act of carrying the item away. During this interval, the severed item, now personalty, is deemed to be in the constructive possession of the landowner, and a subsequent taking constitutes a theft of that personal property.
Analysis:
This decision reaffirms a formalistic and ancient common law distinction between larceny and trespass that hinges on the timing between severance and asportation. The court explicitly acknowledges the distinction lacks a strong moral basis but considers itself bound by the established common law precedent. This case serves as a key example of how a legal fiction—treating a continuous act as a single trespass versus two distinct acts (trespass then larceny)—can be outcome-determinative. It underscores the principle that courts will often defer to the legislature to abrogate or modify such deeply-rooted common law rules, even when they appear archaic.
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