Willcox v. Stroup

467 F.3d 409 (4th Cir. 2006)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

At dispute are approximately 444 documents from the administrations of South Carolina Governors Francis Pickens (1860-62) and Milledge Bonham (1862-64). They concern Confederate military reports, correspondence, and telegrams between various Confederate generals, officers, servicemen, and government officials, and related materials. The collection has been appraised at $2.4 million. The papers come into D's family through his great-great-uncle, Confederate Major General Evander McIver Law, who most likely came into possession of them during the February 1865 attack on the South Carolina capital by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. A large number of State archives and records were removed from Columbia for safekeeping. In 1896, General Law wrote a letter to a New York book dealer regarding the sale of some letters which, both parties agree, appear to belong to the collection at issue here. By the 1940s, Mrs. Annie J. Storm, the granddaughter of General Law, was in possession of the papers and attempted to sell them to both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ('UNC') and the Library of the University of South Carolina. Mrs. Storm described the documents as 'original State House papers entrusted to [her] grandfather at the time of the surrender.' It is clear that the papers have been in the possession of the Law and D families for over one hundred and forty years. P found the papers in 1999 or 2000 in a shopping bag in a closet at his late stepmother's home. P sold a few of them to various individuals and gave two to his wife. P scheduled an auction to sell the remaining documents. Stroup (D) sought permission to microfilm the papers for the State Archives prior to auction. This was authorized. On the day before the auction, D obtained a temporary restraining order in state court enjoining the sale of the papers. P filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the District of South Carolina. P then sought a declaratory judgment that the papers were property of the bankruptcy estate. The bankruptcy court held D to be the owner of the papers under South Carolina law. The district court reversed.