Coleman v. Cocke

6 Va. 618
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedDecember 17, 1828
StatusPublished

This text of 6 Va. 618 (Coleman v. Cocke) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Coleman v. Cocke, 6 Va. 618 (Va. 1828).

Opinion

December 17.

JUDGE GREEN

delivered his opinion.

) The Appellees having obtained Decrees against William Bentley, filed their Bill against him, and many persons holding personal, and others holding real property, some of them directly, and others indirectly, under him, the object of which was to set aside the conveyances as being *fraudulent as to them, and to subject the property, thereby conveyed, to the satisfaction of their claims.

The Counsel for Coleman, who holds a part of the land in question, urged as an objection to the jurisdiction of the Court, that at the time when the Bill was filed, the Plaintiffs had not a capacity to sue out Elegits on their Decrees, without taking some further preliminary step to enable them to do so, and consequently had not then a subsisting lien on their debtor’s land, that not being the effect of a Judgment only per se, but of the capacity to extend it by Elegit, and that a creditor at large, having no lien on his debtor’s land, cannot claim the aid of a Court of Equity, in order to enable him to reach it by removing impediments to his proceedings at Haw. This objection, if well founded, would lead to the dismission of the Bill as to the relief sought, in respect to all the lands mentioned in it.

The objection is founded on the decision of this Court in Eppes v. Randolph, 2 Call. 125, and a recent decision of C. J. Marshall, to the same effect, in which it was held, that a judgment creditor could not overreach in Equity a bona fide conveyance of his debtor’s land, made after the Judgment, and at a time when the capacity to sue out an Elegit was suspended in consequence of no Execution having been sued out within the vear, and no election entered on the Record, or for any other cause. These decisions proceeded upon the merits of the respective cases, and not upon the question of jurisdiction, and whether right or wrong, do not touch the case under consideration, either in respect to the question [850]*850of jurisdiction, or upon its merits; for here ail the Defendants were purchasers before the date of the Decrees, and are charged to have purchased fraudulently. And in all the cases upon the subject, in the English Court of Chancery, it seems to have been the. uniform course to consider a Judgment, with a capacity to acquire the right to sue out an Elegit, by Scire Eacias or otherwise, as such a lien as gave jurisdiction to the Court whenever other circumstances justified its *'interposition. And in no case has there ever been any enquiry whether the Judgment had been kept alive by taking out Execution within the year, or otherwise, or whether it had been actually revived or not, in the case of the death of either party, unless from some cause, (for instance the great lapse of time,) it was doubted whether the party could revive his capacity to sue out an Elegit, by reviving his Judgment, as in the case of Burroughs v. Elton, 11 Ves. 29.

However all this may be, I think it clear that at the time when this Bill was filed, the Plaintiffs had an existing capacity to sue out Elegits upon their Decrees, without any preliminary proceeding whatever. They had taken out Executions of Fieri Facias, which had been levied, and returned in part satisfied by the sale of the property taken, without any return of Nihil as to the residue. And in such a case, it is contended, that the Plaintiff could not take out an Elegit, without first taking out a new Execution of Fi. Fa., and having it returned Nihil, upon the ground that upon the just construction of our Statute concerning Executions, it was required that a party electing to resort to one species of Execution, could not resort to one of another description, until he had exhausted the effect of the first, by pursuing it to a return of Nihil or Non est In-ventus ; and, especially, that upon the literal terms of the Statute, an Elegit could not be taken out after a Fi. Fa. or Ca. Sa. returned, unless the return was Nihil, or Non est Inventus.

This leads us to a particular examination of our Statute, the first section of which provides, that ail “persons who have, or shall hereafter recover any debt, damages or costs, in any Court of Record, may at their election prosecute Writs of Fieri Facias, Elegit, and Capias ad Satisfacien-dum, within the year, for taking the goods, lands and body of the debtor.” It then prescribes the teste and return days, and the forms of those Executions, and of their returns. The third section provides, that “when any *Writ of Execution shall issue, and the party, at whose suit the same is issued, shall after-wards desire to take out another Writ of Execution at his own proper costs and charges, the Clerk may issue the same, if the first be not returned and executed; and where, upon a Ca. Sa. the Sheriff shall return, that the Defendant is not found, the Clerk may issue a Fi. Fa. ; and if, upon a Fi. Fa. he shall return that the party hath no goods, or that only part of the debt is levied, in such case it shall be lawful to issue a Ca. Sa. upon the same Judgment; and where part of a debt shall be levied upon an Elegit, a new Elegit shall issue for the residue; and, where Nihil shall be returned upon any Writ of Elegit, a Ca. Sa. or Fi. Fa. may issue, and so vice versa ; and where one Judgment is obtained against several Defendants, Execution thereon shall issue, as if it were against one Defendant, and not otherwise.”

The fourth section, enacts the provisions of 32 Hen. 8, ch. S, which provides, that if a tenant by Elegit be evicted, he may have Scire Facias against the debtor, his heirs, executors and administrators, and have such Executions for the residue of his debt unpaid, as if no Execution had theretofore issued, enlarging tne provisions of the English. Statute, in this, that whilst that only allowed a new Elegit, ours allows a new execution of any sort. The next three sections enact the provisions of the 16th and 17th Car. 2, ch. 5, declaring, that an Extent shall not be avoided on account of the omission of any lands which were extendable. The eighth and ninth sections enacts the provisions of the 21st Jas. 1, ch. 24, authorising a new Execution against the lands and tenements, goods and chattels of a debtor dying in execution, except such lands and tenements as have been bona fide sold for the payment of some other creditor, and the proceeds so applied.

The thirteenth section enacts the provisions of 29th Car. 2, ch. 3, declaring, that goods shall be bound by a Fi. Fa. only from the time of the delivery to the Sheriff. *The twenty-eighth section provides, that a debtor in execution rqay relieve his body, by surrendering goods to be sold as if taken under a Fi. Fa., provided that if they be not sufficient to pay the debt, or are subject to a lien, a new Fi. Fa. or Ca. Sa. may issue. These are all the provisions which touch the question under consideration.

The argument, that a party having once made an election to take one species of Execution, cannot afterwards resort to another, till that elected is exhausted by a return of Nihil or not found, proceeds upon the idea, that such is the effect of the first section giving such election, or the consequence of the particular provisions of the third section, according to which, in every case, (except one, in which a new species of Execution is allowed to be resorted to,) the former is supposed to be first returned Nihil, or not found; and so in the twenty-eighth section, in which a Fi. Fa. or a Ca. Sa. but not an Elegit, is allowed after a debtor has been discharged upon the surrender of property, which proves insufficient to pay the debt incumbered. And the other suggestion, that the literal terms of the Statute allowing a Ca. Sa. or Fi.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
6 Va. 618, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/coleman-v-cocke-va-1828.