54 Iowa 595 | Iowa | 1880
Lead Opinion
The following sections of the Code determine the question before us.
“ Sec.(3567. The party obtaining a judgment in a justice’s court for more than ten dollars may cause a transcript thereof to be certified to the office of the clerk of the Circuit Court in the county.
“ Sec. 3568. The clerk shall forthwith file such transcript, and enter a memorandum thereof in his judgment docket, noting the time of filing the same, and from the time of such filing it shall be treated, in all respects as to its effect and mode of enforcement, as a judgment rendered in the Circuit Court as of hhat date, and no execution can thereafter be issued by the justice on that judgment.”
The language of Sec. 3568 is explicit. It expressly provides that the transcript shall be filed and entered in the judgment docket, and thenceforward “it shall be treated, in all respects as to its effect and manner of enforcement, as a judgment rendered in the Circuit Court of that date.”
The effect of a judgment in the Circuit Court is as follows:
1. It is a lien upon real estate for ten years.
2. It may be enforced for twenty years. Code, § § 3025, 2529, ¶ 6.
The manner of enforcement of such a judgment is by execution.
It follows that, as the judgment in question “is to be treated, in all respects as to its effect and manner of enforcement, as a judgment rendered in the Circuit Court,” an execution may issue thereon at any time within twenty years.
It was the view of the court below that the object of Code, § § 3567 and 3568, is to provide for the enforcement of judgments rendered by justices against real estate. That, doubtless, was one object, and the provisions give them such
In our opinion the judgment of the District Court is erroneous; it is, therefore,
Reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting. — I cannot concur in the foregoing opinion. The error of the opinion, in my judgment, is in holding that it is an effect of a judgment in the Circuit Court that it may be enforced for twenty years. An effect is something produced or occasioned. A lien upon real estate is an effect of a judgment in the Circuit Court, because such a judgment occasions or produces such a lien. But that a judgment may be enforced for twenty years is not an effect of a judgment, but a property or quality of a judgment. It is a part of the definition of a judgment in the Circuit Court that it shall be susceptible of enforcement for twenty years. The effect of anything must be something apart and distinct from the thing itself. It is not possible that the effect of a thing should constitute a part of the thing itself, for, if so, the effect would constitute a part of the cause, and cause and effect would, in part, be the same.
It is to be observed that section 3568 of the Code does not provide that from the time of filing a transcript, and entering a memorandum thereof in the judgment docket, a judgment in a justice’s court shall become a judgment of the Circuit Court, nor even that it shall be treated as a judgment of the Circuit Court. It simply provides that in some respects it shall be treated as a judgment of the Circuit Court. It shall be treated, in all respects as to its effect and mode of enforcement, as a judgment of the Circuit Court. This implies that as to all other respects, except as to its effect and mode of enforcement, it shall not be treated as a judgment of the Circuit Court. The effect of a judgment in the Cir