Coffin v. Freeman

24 A. 986, 84 Me. 535, 1892 Me. LEXIS 144
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine
DecidedJune 24, 1892
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 24 A. 986 (Coffin v. Freeman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Judicial Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Coffin v. Freeman, 24 A. 986, 84 Me. 535, 1892 Me. LEXIS 144 (Me. 1892).

Opinion

Whitehouse, J.

This is a writ of entry in which the plaintiff demands possession of township No. Eighteen, Middle Division, Bingham Purchase, in the county of Washington. The defendant disclaims all interest in the premises except a lot situated in the south west corner of the township, comprising fifty acres of upland and all that part of Schoodiac pond lying in township Eighteen. Both parties claim to own this fifty acre lot in fee simple, and both derive title from Otis S. Tibbetts. The plaintiff seeks to establish his claim by conveyances from two different judgment creditors of Tibbetts : first, by a conveyance from Go wen Wilson who purchased, at an execution sale July 5th, 1879, the right in equity which Tibbetts had September 1st, 1877, the date of the attachment on mesne process, .to redeem the entire township from a mortgage to George Harris and others, dated December 1st, 1869 ; and second, by a conveyance from Horatio N. Bridgham who caused a levy to be [537]*537made on the entire township by virtue of an execution issued on a judgment in his favor against Tibbetts, pursuant to an attachment made in the original suit September 22, 1874.

The defendant claims to hold under a quit claim deed of this fifty acre lot alone, executed by Tibbetts April 24, 1877, in consideration of fifty dollars; but this deed was not recorded until February 7, 1878. It thus appears that the attachment in favor of Growen Wilson, as well as that in favor of Bridgham, was prior to the record of the defendant’s quit claim deed ; and the plaintiff accordingly claims that he shows a title superior to the defendant’s, either by the sale of the Tibbetts’ equity on the Wilson execution or by the levy on the Bridgham execution. The defendant attacks the legality of the proceedings in both cases and denies that the plaintiff acquired any title from either source.

The deeds from Growen Wilson, William PI. Knowles and L. A. Knowles were sufficient to vest in the plaintiff whatever title Wilson acquired by the sheriff’s deed under the sale on his execution, and if all the proceedings which culminated in that sale as well as the officer’s return and the deed to the purchaser were in accordance with the statute, regular and valid, the plaintiff's title to the fifty acre lot would have priority over that of the defendant.

But the defendant interposes and elaborates with painstaking industry thirty objections to the validity of the sale on the Wilson execution. He claims in the first place and offers parol evidence tending to show that, as a part of the consideration of a deed received by them January 12, 1880, from the administrator on the estate of Otis S. Tibbetts, deceased, Knowles and Coffin agreed to pay and discharge all the incumbrances on the real estate purchased by them, including the Plarris mortgage, the Wilson sale and the Bridgham levy. But the nature and effect of that proceeding are readily comprehended without the aid of parol evidence. Knowles and Coffin purchased the interest of the Tibbetts estate in that property. This was all the administrator could sell. The purchasers received their deed subject to existing liens with the obvious understanding that they must [538]*538discharge the incumbrances or lose the benefit of their purchase ; but, as they did not elect to avail themselves of this right under the administrator’s deed and do not now seek to make title by virtue of that deed, the transaction is no longer material to this inquiry respecting the validity of the sale on the Wilson execution.

In the officer’s return of the seizure and sale of Tibbett’s right to redeem from the Harris mortgage, it is represented that the real estate is " subject to a mortgage recorded in Washington County Registry of Deeds, book 124, page 84, given by Otis S. Tibbetts to George Harris and company.” There were in fact eighteen individual mortgagees and no partnership existing among them ; and it is, therefore, suggested that this designation is erroneous and misleading. But, the express reference to the record of the mortgage, by book and page, considered in connection with the description of the property and the names of the mortgagor and the first named mortgagee, leaves no room for doubt respecting the identity of the mortgage.

It is next claimed that the writ in the action Wilson v. Tibbetts, did not contain such a specification of the nature and amount of the plaintiff’s claim as would authorize an attachment of real estate. But an inspection of the account annexed to the writ shows that this suggestion is not warranted by the record. The account gave the defendant definite notice of the nature and amount of the plaintiff’s demand and was a sufficient compliance with the statute to create a lien on real estate. Jordan v. Keen, 54 Maine, 417. ■

The " agreed price ” per year for the right to flow the plaintiff’s land was legally recoverable in that action of assumpsit. Such a right is not even an interest in land but is in the nature of a license to do certain acts upon the land of another, as, to cut trees upon or pass over the land of another. Clement v. Durgin, 5 Maine, 9. But, for aught that appears, the compensation may have been fixed by written agreement or lease. R. S., c. 94, § 10.

It is, therefore, sufficient that under the declaration and specifications in that writ, evidence was admissible upon which the [539]*539judgment in question may have been legally rendered. That judgment has not been impeached for fraud, want of jurisdiction or error in law, but has stood unreversed and unquestioned, for more than twelve years, conclusive evidence of the existence and amount of the defendant’s indebtedness to the plaintiff in that suit. None of the objections here raised respecting the origin and character of that indebtedness are now open to this defendant. A judgment cannot be thus collaterally impeached. Smith v. Keen, 26 Maine, 423 ; Granger v. Clark, 22 Maine, 128 ; Banister v. Higginson, 15 Maine, 73 ; Sidensparker v. Sidensparker, 52 Maine, 481; Crafts v. Ford, 21 Maine, 417 ; Jordan v. Keen, supra.

It is provided by 11. S., c. 76, § 23, that, "when by an error of the officer the amount for wh ich the levy was made exceeds the amount of debt or damage, costs, interest and cost of levy, by a sum not greater that one per cent thereof, it is valid if otherwise legally made.” In this case the alleged error of the officer of one dollar and seventy cents in the computation of interest is much less than one per cent of the amount for which the levy should have been made. Before the passage of this statute, it had been repeatedly held in this State that a levy is not to be avoided because an officer has taxed and caused to be satisfied in the extent, fees not authorized by law. Sturdivant v. Frothingham, 10 Maine, 100; Keen v. Briggs, 46 Maine, 467. The officer in such case is liable to the debtor but the creditor is not to suffer by any extortion of the officer. The levies in which illegal fees may have been charged remain unaffected by the statute and are not to be defeated for that cause. Wilson v. Gannon, 54 Maine, 385.

But, as the result of an obvious clerical error in adding the debt and cost in the execution, the officer was commanded to collect an excess of one dollar.

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Bluebook (online)
24 A. 986, 84 Me. 535, 1892 Me. LEXIS 144, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/coffin-v-freeman-me-1892.