Levy Durand Wigfall asks the court to examine and reverse its decision in an earlier case. In 1801, Catharine Wigfall and her husband Samuel sued her brother Levy, executor of their father's estate. In the 1780s Catharine and her three siblings, all minors, had inherited thirty-four slaves from their grandmother. Their father, Joseph Wigfall, took possession of the slaves, using them on his estate until his children married or arrived at age twenty-one. Joseph Wigfall died in 1800, leaving most of his estate to his son Levy, which, according to Levy, upset Catharine and Samuel. "To gratify the resentment occasioned by her receiving but a comparatively small share of her fathers estate," they sued Levy for compensation for the labor of her slaves while in her father's possession; the court ruled in their favor. Levy says that he has found evidence among his father's papers proving that they were entitled to less compensation than the court allowed. Samuel died in 1805, but Levy wants the court to summon Samuel Warren, the executor of Samuel's estate, and Alexander Garden, Catharine's administrator, to reopen the case. Levy Wigfall asks the court to reverse the earlier decision, because it was "founded on erroneous principles."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
