## Facts

- Thomas Law Willcox, later a Chapter 11 debtor, discovered 444 Civil War–era documents in a shopping bag in a closet at his late stepmother’s home; the documents were valued at about $2.4 million.
- The papers were associated with South Carolina Confederate-era gubernatorial administrations and were traced to Confederate Major General Evander McIver Law, Willcox’s great-great-uncle.
- During the 1865 evacuation of Columbia amid Union advances, state records were removed for safekeeping; the record supported an inference that General Law obtained the documents at that time, with no evidence of unlawful acquisition.
- The documents remained in the Law/Willcox family’s possession for roughly 140 years, including unsuccessful efforts to sell them in 1896 and 1940; the papers were microfilmed at a university.
- Willcox planned to auction the documents; South Carolina obtained a temporary restraining order in state court to stop the sale, asserting the documents were public property.
- In bankruptcy, Willcox filed an adversary proceeding seeking a declaration that the documents were property of the bankruptcy estate.

## Issues

1. Whether the Civil War–era gubernatorial papers were public property owned by South Carolina or private property included in Willcox’s bankruptcy estate.
2. Whether long, continuous private possession created a presumption of ownership under South Carolina law, and whether the State carried the burden to rebut that presumption with proof of superior title.
3. Whether the historical character of gubernatorial papers required treating them as state property absent specific proof of state ownership.

## Decision

- The bankruptcy court ruled for the State, finding the documents belonged to South Carolina.
- The district court reversed, concluding the State failed to prove the documents were public property and holding they belonged to the bankruptcy estate.
- The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court, holding the documents were part of Willcox’s bankruptcy estate.
- The court relied on the presumption that a long-term possessor is the owner and found the State’s evidence insufficient to establish superior title.
- The court rejected a categorical rule that gubernatorial papers of the relevant period were necessarily public property, instead requiring proof of public ownership for these documents.

## Legal Principles

- Under South Carolina law, possession of personal property creates a rebuttable presumption that the possessor is the rightful owner.
- The party not in possession bears the burden to prove superior title by a preponderance of the evidence (satisfactory evidence).
- Claims that historically governmental documents are public property require evidentiary support; governmental origin alone does not establish state ownership.
- Long, peaceful, unchallenged possession weighs heavily in favor of private ownership where formal title records or provenance evidence is limited.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit held that decades-long private possession of the gubernatorial documents created a presumption of ownership that South Carolina did not rebut with proof of superior title, so the documents belonged to the debtor and entered the bankruptcy estate rather than becoming state property.


Willcox v. Stroup, 467 F.3d 409 (4th Cir. 2006)