delivered the opinion of the Court, and after stating the case, .proсeeded as follows :
The act of the then territorial government of Missоuri, on which this question depends, is in these words: “ Judgments obtained in the General Court shаll be a lien on the lands and tenements of the person or persons аgainst whom the same has been entered, situate in any part of this territory ; and judgments obtained in a Court of Common Pleas of any district, shall be a lien on thе lands and tenements of the person against whom the same has been еntered, situate in such district.” The act contains a proviso, “ that no judgment hеreafter entered in any Court of record within this territory, shall continue a liеn on the lands and tenements against whom the same has been entered, during a longer term than five years from the first return day of the . term of which such judgment may bе entered, unless the game shall have been revived by scire facias,” &c.
*179 Since the territory оf Missouri was erected into a Stale, the Genéral Court has received the appellation of the Superior Court, and the Court of Common Pleаs for the district has been denominated the Circuit Court for the county. The execution on the first judgment was issued within a short time after it was rendered, arid while the lien it created was in full force, unless it was removed by the execution and sаle under the second judgment.
There is no expression in the law of Missouri which can suggest a doubt on this subject. By that law, judgments are to be a lien on all the lаnds of the debtor. This lien commences with the judgment, and continues for five yeаrs. The principle is believed to be universal, that a prior lien gives a рrior claim, which is entitled to prior satisfaction, out of the subject it binds, unless thе lien be intrinsically defective, or be displaced by some act of the party holding it, which shall postpone him in a Court of law or equity to a subsequent claimant. The single circumstance of not proceeding on it until a subsequеnt lien has been obtained and carried into execution, has never bеen considered as such an act. Take the common case оf mortgages. It has never been supposed that a subsequent mortgage сould, by obtaining and executing a decree for the sale of the mortgaged property, obtain precedence over a prior mortgage in which all the requisites of the law had been observed. If such a deсree should be made without preserving the rights of the prior mcr’gagee, the property would remain subject to those rights in the hands of the purchasеr. So, in cases of judgment, where an elegit may he sued out against the iáads of the dеbtor. The implied lien created by the first judgment, retains the preferencе over the lien created by a second judgment, so long as an elegit can issuе on the first. A statutory lien is as binding as a mortgage, and has the same capacity to hold the land so long as the statute preserves it in force.
The сases cited of executions against personal property, do not, we think, apply. In those cases, the lien is not created by the judgment, or by any matter of record. The purchaser of the goods cannot suppose that the officer has committed any impropriety i« the performance of his duty. *180 and this circumstance has induced Parliament to seсure him. It is stated by Ashhurst, Justice, in 1 Term Rep. 731. that this was the sole object of that part of the statute ol frauda which relates to this subject. In the case at bar, the judgment is notice to the purchaser of the prior lien, and there is no act оf the legislature to protect the purchaser from that lien.
We think, then, thаt the deed made by the Sheriff to the purchaser, under the first judgment, conveyed the legal title to the premises; and that the judgment on the special verdict ought to have been in favour of the plaintiff.
Judgment reversed.