101 Ga. 496 | Ga. | 1897
While it is the general rule that the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction is conclusive between parties and their privies as to the facts which it decides (Civil Code, §5348), yet this broad statement is subject to some qualification. Most rules designed to cover broad, complex and varying relations must be, in certain instances, somewhat modified, and so with this one. The rule is as just above stated, yet it has been held not to apply so as to make a judgment against a tenant for life conclusive, as to the facts it decides, against the reversioner who has not been made a party to the action. Other qualifications of the general rule have been made, and both reason and authority, we think, require that it be restricted in the present case.
A judgment against a party estops his grantee when the grant is subsequent to the judgment. After judgment the property is, in the hands of the grantor, impressed therewith, and as he conveys no greater interest than he has, the grantee receives the property impressed with the judgment and is estopped to deny the facts by it decided. “He holds by a derivative title from such grantor, and can not, therefore, be in a better situation than the party from whom he obtained his right.” Campbell v. Hall, 16 N. Y. 575; Gunn v. Wades, 62 Ga. 20. A case where the grantee takes the property before the commencement of the action on which the judgment is founded is within
This reasoning applies with equal force to the present case, where the deed was given to secure a debt, and we think therefore that, the deed having been made before the commencement of the action in ejectment against the grantor, the grantee is not concluded or estopped by the judgment. He is privy in estate only with respect to the estate at the time of the execution of the security deed or to what is the legitimate result of its status at that time. Mathes v. Cover, 43 Iowa, 512; Garrard v. Hull & Tobin, 92 Ga. 787.
These principles are recognized in our code in a closely analogous case, when it declares: “The admissions of privies . . . are admissible as against the parties themselves, but declarations of privies in estate, after the estate has passed out of them, can not be received.” Civil Code, §5193. And the reason for this modification of the rule relating to admissions of privies in estate is identical with that given above as controlling the rule in regard to the conclusiveness of judgments against privies. See Campbell v. Hall, supra; Mathes v. Cover, supra; Chester v. Bakersfield T. H. Ass’n, 64 Cal. 42; Bartero v. Bank, 10 Mo. App. 76; Coles v. Allen, Preer & Illges, 64 Ala. 98; Todd v. Flournoy’s Heirs, &c., 56 Ala. 99; Dooley v. Potter, 140 Mass. 49; 1 Greenl. Ev. (15th ed.) § 536; 12 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, pp. 92-93 and notes.
The judgment offered in evidence was not binding on the defendant in error, the grantee in the security deed, and can not be of any probative value in' this case in determining the facts decided by the suit on which it is founded. To prove the facts decided by it, such judgment was not competent or relevant evidence in this case, and when offered for that purpose it was properly rejected by the judge.
The joint returns of Rudisill and Smith were not inadmissible for the reasons assigned in the motion for a new trial. The return seems to have been a joint return by the two executors, although verified by Rudisill only. It must have been allowed and recorded by the ordinary, for in the brief of evidence it is mentioned as a certified copy from the ordinary’s office of Taliaferro county. The item of the return insisted upon by the plaintiff in the court below seems to be somewhat relevant to the matter in issue.
The entries on the fi. fas. were as follows:
“Georgia, Taliaferro county: I have this day levied this fi. fa. on two tracts of land in said county, one known as the home tract, containing four hundred acres more or less, and one known as the mill tract, containing two hundred acres more or less, as the property of the defendant.
“This Nov. 13, 1868. P. G. Yeazey, sheriff.”
“Georgia, Taliaferro county: I have this day levied the within fi. fa. on one tract of land in said county, known as the home tract, containing six hundred acres and fifty acres, more or less, as the property of deft.
“July 15, 1875. M. D. L. Googer, sheriff”
These descriptions of the property were not as definite and specific as they might have been, but they seem to be sufficient to determine the property sought to be described. While they may not have completely identified the property, they at least furnished the means of identification. The inaccuracies in the expression of the number of acres levied upon and sold are slight and can not be held to affect the validity of the sale. On the whole we think the fi. fas. and the entries thereon were sufficient to uphold the-sale and were not void for uncertainty or for insufficiency of description, and that the deed introduced sufficiently described the property conveyed. Beardsley v. Hilson, 94 Ga. 50; Derrick v. Sams, 98 Ga. 397.
The levies under which the land was sold and the deed of the sheriff were properly admitted to show the title of those claiming under such sale and conveyance.
Judgment reversed.