25 Mo. 105 | Mo. | 1857
delivered the opinion of the court.
It is made an objection to the action of the court below that it admitted in evidence the certificate of the justice who returned the transcript to the office of the clerk of the Circuit Court, which does not show how he became possessed of the papers and records of the justice whose proceedings he transcribed and certified. The justice who certified the transcript not -being the same officer before whom the cause was tried and by whom the judgment was entered, it is maintained that it should appear by evidence, or at least that his certificate should show, how he came into the possession of the docket and papers of the other justice. The law points
We do not see how the objection of a want of an execution on the justice’s judgment can be surmounted. There is nothing in the circumstances of this case which should create an inclination to relax the rules of evidence in order to sus7 tain the title acquired by the sheriff’s sale. That title was acquired after the deed through which the defendants claim. That deed was for a valuable consideration, and, from every thing that appears, with but constructive notice. The plaintiffs and those through whom they claim, taking a title which was to displace others acquired for value, should be prepared to show that the law has been complied with. If we take it that in the justice’s proceedings there was a judgment against both defendants, yet it can not be made to appear against which of the defendants the execution issued, even admitting that the memorandum of the justice on his docket was evidence that an execution had been issued, about which we give no opinion. The execution was not in evidence, and the. plaintiffs relied on a memorandum on the justice’s docket, in these words: “ Fi. fa. issued the 3d day of June, 1844; alias fi. fa. issued on the 31st October, 1844. Returned, ‘ no goods of the within defendant found whereof to levy.’ ” To sustain this case, it was necessary for the plaintiffs to show that there was a judgment against two. Now with such an entry placed opposite a judgment against two persons, how is it possible to say that it was against both ? and even if it was against both, which of the two had no goods whereof to levy ? Oases have been decided on the difference between defendant and defendants — the singular and the plural. We do not know that the word defendant by itself, like the word- heir, has ever been taken as a nomen collectivum. We will not
judgment reversed, and cause remanded ;