## Facts

- Sigfrid Anderson cut ninety-three pine logs in Isanti County, Minnesota, during the winter of 1889–1890 and hauled them to a mill.
- Anderson had no permission from the landowners where he cut the timber and was a trespasser as against those owners.
- Hans J. Gouldberg and D. O. Anderson, partners doing business as Gouldberg & Anderson, later took the logs from the mill.
- Defendants asserted the logs were cut from land owned by the Ann River Logging Company and that they seized the logs under the company’s direction.
- The case was tried as a replevin action for the logs (or their value).
- The jury found for Anderson and awarded damages of $153.45, necessarily rejecting defendants’ claim that they acted under the logging company’s authority.
- The trial court denied defendants’ motion for a new trial; defendants appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether prior “bare possession” of personal property, even if obtained by trespass, is sufficient to maintain replevin against a subsequent taker who is a stranger to the true title and shows no superior claim.
2. Whether a defendant can defeat a replevin claim merely by proving the plaintiff’s possession was wrongful, without connecting the defendant to the true owner or proving superior title.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the order denying a new trial, leaving the judgment for Anderson in place.
- The court held that prior possession of chattels is sufficient to recover in replevin against a mere stranger who takes the property and cannot show a better right.
- The court rejected the argument that proof of the plaintiff’s trespass alone defeats recovery when the defendant shows no superior title or authority from the true owner.

## Legal Principles

- Prior possession of personal property is a protected interest and is sufficient “title” to support replevin against a subsequent wrongdoer who is a stranger to the property.
- The requirement that a replevin plaintiff’s possession be “lawful” means lawful as against the defendant; it does not require that the plaintiff’s acquisition be rightful against the true owner.
- Possession raises a presumption of ownership, but a defendant rebuts it in a way that defeats the action only by proving superior title or a connection to one with superior title (such as acting under the true owner’s authority).
- Replevin resolves relative rights to immediate possession between litigants; it does not adjudicate or validate rights against the true owner.
- Denying recovery to a prior possessor in favor of an unconnected later taker would encourage unlawful self-help and successive seizures.

## Conclusion

A prior possessor of personal property may recover it in replevin from a later taker who cannot show superior title or authority from the true owner, even if the prior possessor originally obtained the property by trespass against a third party.


Anderson v. Gouldberg, 51 Minn. 294, 53 N.W. 636 (Minn. 1892)