74 Ind. 56 | Ind. | 1881
The appellee brought this suit, as administrator -of the estate of John Whittington, deceased, against John J. Whittington, the only son of said decedent, to obtain an order to sell lot No. six (G), in Auburn Junction, DeKalb county, Indiana, of which said decedent died seized, for the payment of his debts, and against the appellants to enjoin them from selling said lot upon an execution then in the hands of Augustus S. Leas, as sheriff, in favor of Alonzo Lockwood, his no-appellant.
John J. Whittington appeared, and consented to an order for the sale of the lot. Appellants demurred to the complaint for want of facts, which was overruled, and they excepted. They then filed an answer in denial. The issue was submitted to the court for trial, with a request by appellants that the court find the facts specially, and state its conclusions of law thereon. This was done, and the appellants excepted to the conclusions of law. Final judgment was rendered for appellee, from which the. appellants appeal and assign as error that the court erred in its conclusions of law upon the facts found. Other errors are assigned, but as this -one presents the only questions argued by appellants, the others will not be noticed.
The facts as found are briefly these: That on November 22d, 1876, Alonzo Lockwood recovered a judgment against one Nathan Tarney for $86.63, before John S. Barnes, a justice of the peace of DeKalb county, Indiana; that, on said day the decedent wrote upon a piece of paper the usual undertaking for the stay of an execution upon said judgment, ••signed the same, which was attested by said justice upon said paper, and then by said justice attached to his docket, by pinning it to and across the face of the leaf upon which said judgment was entered, and not otherwise ; that at the time •said undertaking was written, the whole of the page of said docket upon which it was attached was filled with the entry •ef said judgment, but there was sufficient room on the
The court adjudged said undertaking to be illegal and void, enjoined appellants from selling said lot upon said execution, and from attempting to enforce said judgment as a. lien upon said lot.
Appellants, in their brief, concede that said execution was: void, but complain of that part of the judgment which perpetually enjoins them from attempting to enforce said judg
Again, if. the admission was sufficient to establish the fact that the judgment was a lien on the lot, and the court should have so found, yet, as it did not, the appellants can not present that question by an exception to the conclusion of law by the court. Such an exception is an admission that the facts are correctly found. Cruzan v. Smith, 41 Ind. 288; Robinson v. Snyder, post, p. 110.
If the court found the facts contrary to the evidence, whether by admission or otherwise, the remedy was by a motion for a new trial, and not by an exception to the conclusions of law by the court. Buskirk’s Practice, p. 206.
The statute provides that the judgment defendant may have stay of execution by entering replevin bail on the docket of the justice. 2 E. S. 1876, p. 632, sec. 84.
It is by statute alone that judgments can be replevied, and the mode of doing it, as prescribed by the statute, must be-observed, to make it valid. Lowe v. Blair, 6 Blackf. 282.
“Entering” on the docket of the justice is to write the undertaking upon the docket as other judgments are written «pon, or recorded in, such docket. To Avrite the undertaking upon a separate piece of paper and attach it to the docket, by pinning it thereto, is not “entering” it upon the docket, within the meaning of the statute, and therefore the undertaking Avas not valid as a recognizance of replevin bail.
For these reasons, we think the court did not err in its •conclusions of laAv.
Per Curiam. — It is therefore ordered, upon the foregoing ■opinion, that the judgment be, and is hereby, in all things •affirmed, at the costs of the appellants.