4 Md. Ch. 382 | New York Court of Chancery | 1847
On the 13th of November, 1844, the complainant filed his bill for the sale of certain premises which had been mortgaged to him by Sevier and wife, by deed bearing date on the 17th of May, 1843, to secure the payment of the sum of $4000, duo Hodges, for moneys advanced by him to Sevier, to pay a debt to one Mackubin, contracted for the purchase money for a tract of land called “Griffith’s Land Resurveyed,” purchased by Sevier from Mackubin. The mortgaged premises consisted of this tract and also of two houses and lots in the city of Annapolis.
It appears by an amended bill filed on the 16th of September, 1846, that Sevier, after the date of the mortgage, conveyed his equity of redemption to one Gabriel H. Duvall as his insolvent trustee, the amendment being made for the purpose of •charging this fact and making the trustee a party.
Sevier and his wife, and Duvall, admitted the facts charged and consented to a decree which passed accordingly, on the 18th of January last, appointing a trustee in common form to make the sale. The trustee reported his sale on the 19th of February following, amounting to $4697, upon which the usual order of ratification, nisi, has been passed, the case not having yet been submitted for the final ratification of the sale.
In this state of the proceedings, Joseph J. Speed and Josias Pennington, by their petition, filed on the 29th of April, stated and showed themselves by the production of a short copy, to be judgment creditors of said Sevier, upon a judgment rendered in the Anne Arundel County Court, at October term, 1840, for $800 and costs, upon which an execution had issued to April term, 1841, and according to the return of the sheriff, partially satisfied, and Unulla lona” returned as to the residue. It further appeared, that the plaintiffs in said judgment, had caused a scire facias to be issued upon it to October term, 1845, to which, at that term, the defendant, Sevier, appeared, and that
The petitioners insist that their said judgment is a lien on the money producted by the sale of the trustee, and entitled to be paid in preference to the mortgage, and they, therefore, pray that the trustee may be compelled to bring the money into court that it may be so applied. In addition to this relief, the petitioners prayed that the sheriff’s return, that he had made a part of the debt, might be corrected, upon the allegation that said return was false.
The matter of this petition was ordered to stand for hearing on notice to the complainant, Hodges, and having been argued by the solicitors in writing, is now to be decided.
The original judgment, it will be perceived, bears date prior to the mortgage, and upon this ground the preference claimed for it is insisted upon, and authorities are cited to show that in a proceeding like the present, the proceeds of property sold under the authority of this court will be applied to the payment of liens in the order in which they were created. The Chancellor does not deem it necessary to state what his opinion would be, if the judgment in question had actually been revived in the court in which it was rendered. In the case of Coombs vs. Jordan, 3 Bland, 324, the late Chancellor decided that a judgment revived by scire facias after the time allowed for suing out execution only operates prospectively, and not with any retrospective effect, so as to overreach intermediate incumbrances or alienations, though as between the parties to the judgment, it may operate as a lien from its date. The same question came before the Court of Appeals in Murphy vs. Cord, 12 G. J., 182, and though no opinion was delivered, it is inferrible from the judgment rendered by the court, that the doctrine of the Chancellor, in Coombs and Jordan, would not receive the Sanction of the appellate tribunal.
But in the present case, the petitioners have not obtained a fiat upon their judgment, and it does not become this court to say whether they will be able to do so or not. It is manifest that standing upon their judgment of 1840 they are precluded from insisting upon their lien or proceeding to enforce payment
The judgment of these petitioners, then, as it now stands, must bo presumed to be satisfied, or at all events, is not in a condition to be enforced at law, and, therefore, it is not perceived upon what principle they can in this court contest with the complainant the question of the proper application of the money arising from the sale of the mortgaged premises in this case. It is not for this court to say, whether the judgment will or will not ever be revived, and if by an order of this court the proceeds of the property sold by the trustee, should be applied to its payment, and the County Court should hereafter, in the case growing out of the scire facias, give judgment for the defendant, Sevier, a very great wrong would be done. It is the opinion o f the Chancellor, that waiving the other questions, drawn into discussion by the counsel on either side, a sufficient reason has been given for refusing the prayer of the petition, which must consequently bo dismissed.