Boller v. Sun Valley Shamrock Resources, Inc.

812 P.2d 1221, 119 Idaho 1060, 1990 Ida. App. LEXIS 105, 1990 WL 91181
CourtIdaho Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 5, 1990
DocketNo. 17832
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 812 P.2d 1221 (Boller v. Sun Valley Shamrock Resources, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boller v. Sun Valley Shamrock Resources, Inc., 812 P.2d 1221, 119 Idaho 1060, 1990 Ida. App. LEXIS 105, 1990 WL 91181 (Idaho Ct. App. 1990).

Opinion

BENGTSON, Judge, Pro Tem.

This appeal deals with the right of a judgment debtor to require the filing of a satisfaction of judgment where the judgment creditor purchased at execution sale certain real property in which the judgment debtor had an interest but which was subject, at the time of the execution sale, to prior liens or encumbrances in favor of third parties. We hold that the district court erred in denying a motion by the judgment debtor to require the judgment creditor to record a satisfaction of the judgment.

The factual background before us is scant. In summarizing the material facts we rely, apparently as did the lower court, upon the respective affidavits of respondent Stephen W. Boiler and Mr. Crist, attorney for appellants. It does not appear that there is any dispute as to the facts revealed by those affidavits, and we set forth salient facts as follows.

As a licensed attorney, respondent Stephen W. Boiler performed services for appellants over a period of about nine years. In June of 1985, Boiler filled a lien against two parcels of real property situate in Blaine County, Idaho, asserting an attorney’s lien in an amount over $45,000 for unpaid legal fees owed him by appellants. One of the parcels of real property was a forty-acre tract; the other was a parcel with dimensions of 100 feet by 56 feet, which we will refer to as “the smaller parcel.”

In October, 1985, respondents filed their complaint in this case to foreclose an attorney’s lien. Thereafter, the Hon. J. William Hart, who was then the presiding district judge in this matter, entered a judgment, stipulated to by respondents and appellants, awarding respondents judgment against appellants in the sum of $40,000 and foreclosing the attorney’s lien against the two parcels of real property described in the lien. At the time the judgment was entered, the smaller parcel was subject to a prior deed of trust in favor of one Gunderson. It further appears that, at the time the judgment was entered, the forty-acre tract was the subject of a lis pendens filed in another action pending in Blaine County.

Thereafter, a writ of execution was issued directing the sheriff of Blaine County to satisfy the judgment by levying upon, and selling at execution sale, sufficient personal property and, if necessary, real property of appellants, to satisfy the judgment. The personal property of appellants being insufficient to satisfy the judgment, the sheriff levied upon the two parcels of real property, and an execution sale was conducted on April 2, 1987. At the sale a representative or agent of respondents (whose authority to act for the latter has not been denied) bid a sum equal to the full amount of the judgment. This bid was the highest bid made, and thus respondents were the successful bidders at the execution sale. Respondents’ bid price was credited against the judgment and, later, the Sheriff of Blaine County conveyed the two parcels of real property to respondents by a sheriff’s deed.

Gunderson foreclosed her deed of trust lien on the smaller parcel, and this parcel was sold to a third party pursuant to such foreclosure on July 22, 1988.

There is no evidence that, subsequent to the delivery of the sheriff’s deed, respondents were deprived of possession of the forty-acre tract. On the contrary, in his affidavit Boiler states that in 1987 respondents received $750 “for horse pasture ... on the 40 acre parcel;” and, at oral argument on this appeal, respondents’ counsel informed this Court that respondents have been in possession of the forty-acre tract up to, and including, the time of the oral argument. It thus appears that respondents have been in possession of the forty acre tract ever since the delivery of the sheriff’s deed.

Appellants, on July 27, 1988, moved the trial court for an order compelling respondents, pursuant to I.R.C.P. 58(b), “to file [sic] a full satisfaction of judgment” upon the grounds that respondents had bid an amount equal to the judgment at the execution sale. The trial court denied the motion and revived the judgment previously entered in favor of respondents pursuant to [1063]*1063I.C. § 11-312. The appellants then sought relief under I.R.C.P. 59(e) by filing a motion to alter the court’s decision to revive the judgment. The court’s order denying that motion was certified as a final judgment pursuant to I.R.C.P. 54(b), and this appeal followed.

In denying appellants’ motion to compel respondents to record a full satisfaction, and in ordering that respondents’ judgment be revived, and in denying the motion to alter, the trial court found that there had been “a complete and absolute failure” of the title which respondents acquired in the two parcels by virtue of the execution sale and sheriff’s deed. The court below concluded (1) that by virtue of such failure of title “the original judgment is revived pursuant to Idaho Code Section 11-312,” and (2) that there had been no consideration paid for which a satisfaction of judgment need be filed, and (3) that the doctrine of caveat emptor is not applicable to execution sales. We hold that the court erred in so concluding and erred both in denying appellants’ motion to compel the recording of a full satisfaction of the judgment as required by I.R.C.P. 58(b) and in ordering that the judgment was revived under I.C. § 11-312.

The Caveat Emptor and Failure of Title Issues

We hold that, absent a showing of a fraudulent conveyance of, secret infirmities in title to, or outstanding latent equities in, real property purchased at an execution sale, the execution sale purchaser takes title subject to the doctrine of caveat emptor. Generally, an execution purchaser acquires only such interest as the judgment debtor had in the property purchased. Goldenstern v. Gavin, 187 Okl. 338, 102 P.2d 582 (1940). See also, Brewer v. Warner, 105 Kan. 168, 182 P. 411 (1919); State v. Blake, 88 Utah 584, 20 P.2d 871 (1933).

By way of a dictum in Works v. Byrom, 22 Idaho 794, 799, 128 P. 551, 552 (1912), the Idaho Supreme Court recognized that

It is a well settled principle that the doctrine of caveat emptor applies to judicial sales. The purchaser obtains just the title the debtor had; and it has been held that in the absence of fraud, excusable mistake, or misrepresentations respecting the title which have misled him, he will not be relieved from his purchase because the title to the property has failed, where the proceedings would pass the title if the debtor had it.

Furthermore, under I.C. § 11-310, a purchaser at execution sale acquires “all the right, title, interest and claim of the judgment debtor thereto,” subject to the right of redemption. Thus, the purchaser at an execution sale acquires title to the property purchased subject to prior liens and the right of redemption. Keel v. Vinyard, 48 Idaho 49, 279 P. 420 (1929).

The record presented on this appeal is devoid of any showing that the two parcels which respondents purchased at the foreclosure sale were the subject of a prior fraudulent conveyance, were subject to any secret infirmities in the title to the parcels or that the respective titles to such parcels were subject to outstanding latent equities. On the contrary, respondents were aware, actually or constructively, of the Gunderson deed of trust incumbering the smaller parcel and of the lis pendens affecting the forty-acre tract.

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Bluebook (online)
812 P.2d 1221, 119 Idaho 1060, 1990 Ida. App. LEXIS 105, 1990 WL 91181, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boller-v-sun-valley-shamrock-resources-inc-idahoctapp-1990.