210 Mass. 588 | Mass. | 1912
The execution with the amended return making it conformable to the truth was admissible to prove the recitals in the sheriff’s deed under which the demandant claimed title to the premises. Childs v. Barrows, 9 Met. 413. Sawyer v. Harmon, 136 Mass. 414. Hunneman v. Phelps, 207 Mass. 439. But unless it appeared therefrom, that in making the levy and sale, the requirements of the statute had been followed, the judgment debtors had not been divested of their estate. Rand v. Cutler, 155 Mass. 451, 453. By R. L. c. 178, § 28, a notice of the time and place of sale must be posted in the city or town where the land lies, and in two adjoining cities or towns if there are so many in the county, and, the debtors having been described in the execution as residing in another county, it was also necessary under § 44 to send by mail, postpaid and addressed to each of them at their residence as described in the execution, a written or printed notice of the sale. R. L. c. 8, § 5, cl. 25. It is the purpose of the statute, that the debtor shall be notified in order that he may fully protect his interests at the auction, or prevent the sale by payment of the judgment with accrued costs.
The proceedings indeed must conform to the statute, but no set form of words is prescribed by which compliance must be manifested. The errors relied on by the tenant as to the posting of the notice and service upon the defendants go rather to the form of expression used by the levying officer than to the substance of the statute, and the verbal departures in the return from the literal wording of the statute do not affect the truth of the recitals of what had been done, and in these particulars the statements show with sufficient certainty, that he acted in conformity with it. Owen v. Neveau, 128 Mass. 427. Sawyer v. Harmon, 136 Mass. 414, 415. Holmes v. Jordan, 163 Mass. 147, 148, 149.
“ The officer shall also cause a notice of the time and place of sale to be published three weeks successively before the sale in a newspaper, if any, published in the county in which the land
The return leaves nothing to be inferred as to the steps taken. It specifically and aptly recites, that in the mode prescribed the time and place of sale were published in a newspaper printed in the county, and on the face of the record no error is disclosed.
The essential elements of a valid sale having been put in evidence, the judge properly declined to give the tenant’s request, that the truth of the recitals in the sheriff’s deed had not been shown. Welsh v. Joy, 13 Pick. 477.
The jury also were correctly instructed, that the evidence, if believed, warranted an affirmative answer to the second issue which raised the only questions presented by the exceptions. It is settled, that extrinsic evidence was not admissible to contradict or control the return on the execution. Sykes v. Keating, 118 Mass. 517, 520. And the decision of the associate judge of the Land Court moreover having contained no findings of fact, but only a ruling of law, it had no evidentiary value under St. 1905, c. 288. DePonta v. Driscoll, 200 Mass. 225, 226.
Exceptions overruled.