## Facts

- Walter Towner held a deed (1855) to a roughly 158-acre tract and possessed it until leaving in 1863.
- Before leaving, Towner placed Bristow Bugg (then enslaved by Towner) in possession to keep intruders off, maintain the property, and pay taxes until Towner’s return.
- After emancipation, Bugg remained in possession and refused to surrender the land; Towner filed ejectment.
- Bugg offered evidence that he had furnished funds toward his own purchase price, repaid Towner, and that Towner agreed to buy the land for Bugg, hold title for Bugg’s benefit, and allow Bugg to pay for and occupy it as his own.
- The trial court excluded Bugg’s proffered evidence as an impermissible “contract with a slave” and entered a verdict for Towner.

## Issues

1. Whether the writ of error should be dismissed for alleged defects in the bill of exceptions and certification of the brief of evidence.
2. Whether a plaintiff may obtain ejectment when his asserted title and right to possession are intertwined with an illegal arrangement prohibited by Georgia’s anti-manumission statute, including permitting a slave to work for himself and enjoy the profits of his labor.

## Decision

- The motion to dismiss the writ of error was denied.
- The judgment for Towner was reversed.
- The court held it would not aid Towner in recovering possession because his claim depended on transactions condemned as “utterly null and void” by the 1818 statute; the parties were left where their unlawful dealings placed them.

## Legal Principles

- Under Georgia’s 1818 anti-manumission statute, any written or parol contract, trust, or arrangement made to effect manumission directly or indirectly, including by allowing a slave to work for himself and enjoy the profits of his labor, is “utterly null and void.”
- Courts will not grant relief to a party whose cause of action requires reliance on an illegal transaction; where both parties participated in illegality, the law leaves them as it finds them, favoring the defendant in possession.
- A defendant’s success in resisting ejectment on illegality grounds does not validate the underlying illegal contract; it operates as a bar to the plaintiff’s requested judicial assistance.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Georgia refused to enforce an ejectment claim grounded in an unlawful prewar scheme that effectively allowed an enslaved person to work for himself and acquire property, holding that the courts would not assist the plaintiff to recover possession when doing so required reliance on transactions the statute declared void.


Bugg v. Towner, 41 Ga. 315 (Ga. 1870)