82 Tenn. 520 | Tenn. | 1884
delivered the opinion of the court.
On September 25, 1877, complainant’s intestate recovered two judgments in the circuit court of Davidson county against respondents, M. M. Brien and W. B. Thaxton. At the time of the rendition of these judgments, M. M. Brien was a citizen of Davidson county, and was the owner of two tracts of land in said county. On October 22, 1877, respondent, M. M. Brien, conveyed one of said tracts of land to his-daughter and son-in-law,' Mary A. and S. B. Hopkins, and the other to his son, B,. C. Brien, and said deeds-
There was a cross-bill by Hopkins and wife, seeking to have said sheriff’s deeds removed as a cloud upon their title.
• The chancellor rendered a decree in favor of the complainant in the original bill, and dismissing the cross-bill, and the respondents, Hopkins and wife, appealed.
The Referees have recommended an affirmance of the chancellor’s decree. One exception has been filed, which is as follows: “ Because said report recommends that the act of 1877, chap. 120, entitled^ “An act to regulate the lien acquired by judgments, decrees, etc.,, be declared unconstitution, as being in violation of' the Constitution, Article XI., sec. 8, and as applying-only to counties having a population of 40,000,” with reference to authorities relied upon to sustain the exception. The only question, therefore, raised by the report, and this exception, although others have been argued, is as to the constitutionality of said act, the first section of which is as follows: “ That the title
It is conceded that the provisions of this act can -only apply to the counties of Davidson and Shelby, they being the only two counties in the State that had by the census of 1870 a population of 40,000. The general law is as follows — by Code, sec.- 2980: “Judgments and decrees obtained in any court of record of this State in the county- where the debtor resides at the time of rendition, shall be a lien upon the i debtor’s land from the time the same were rendered.” And by section 2982: “ The lien thus given will be lost unless an execution is taken out and the land sold within twelve months after the rendition of •the judgment or decree.”
By Article XI., section 8, of the Constitution, it is provided that the Legislature shall have no power to suspend any law. for the benefit of any particular individual, noi’ to *pass any law for the benefit of individuals inconsistent with the general laws of the
The act in question is so clearly a suspension of the general law for the benefit of' the two counties mentioned as to require no argument to establish the .proposition. “The Legislature may suspend the operation of the general laws of the State; but when it does so the suspension must be general, and cannot be made . for individual cases or for particular localities”: Cooley’s Const. Lim., p. 490. The statute of limitations cannot be suspended in particular cases, while allowed to remain in force generally. The general exemption laws cannot be varied for particular cases or localities: Ibid, note 2, and cases cited. A law of the land is a rule embracing and affecting all persons in general, or all persons who exist or may come into a like state and circumstances, while a partial law embraces only a portion of those persons who exist in the same state and are surrounded by like circumstances: 3 Hum., 190; 2 Sneed, 121. By the general law a judgment rendered against a cit-zen of any county of the State by a court of record is a lien upon his land in that county for twelve months from the rendition of the judgment, ■and whoever purchases it during that time takes it subject to that lien. But by the express terms of the act in question a judgment rendered against a
It is insisted, however, that the provisions of this act come within the principle decided in the case of Rauscher v. The State, 1 Lea, 96, in which the act of 1877, ch. 35, commonly known as the four-mile law, was held to be constitutional. This is a misapprehension. That was a mere police regulation, affecting incorporated towns and cities in this State, which are governing agencies, and applied alike to all the incorporated towns and cities in the State. But when, by the act of 1883, it was attempted to amend said act by excepting a certain class of municipal corpo
The act in question, we think, too clearly obnoxious to the provision of the Constitution above cited, and within the principle decided in the case last referred to, to require’ further discussion. .
The exceptions to the report are overruled, and the decree of the chancellor affirmed with costs.