Livingston v. Arnoux

11 N.Y. 507
CourtNew York Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 26, 1874
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 11 N.Y. 507 (Livingston v. Arnoux) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Livingston v. Arnoux, 11 N.Y. 507 (N.Y. 1874).

Opinion

Andrews, J.

We deem it unnecessary to consider the effect of the conveyance made by Francis Price, the judg[514]*514ment debtor, to Latting as receiver, pursuant to the order of the Court of Chancery in the suit, in the nature of a creditor’s bill, brought by Wakeman and others against him. Brice was the owner in fee of the land in controversy March, 9, 1846, when the judgment in favor of Cornelius and Henry Brinekerhoff was recovered, and it became bound by the lien of the judgment. The sale under which the defendant claims was made April 13, 1848, by Hillyer, a deputy of Westervelt, then sheriff of the city and county of New York, on an execution issued upon that judgment, and was of the right and title which Francis Price had on the 9th of March, 1846, in the premises in question. The conveyance to Latting was intermediate the recovery of the Brinekerhoff .judgment, and the sale on execution. Whether that conveyance was a nullity, as is suggested in the opinion of the General Term, for the reason that the court had no jurisdiction to make the order pursuant to which it was made, or is to be regarded as the creation of a trust for the payment of the debt on which the proceedings in equity were founded (Chautauqua Co. Bank v. Risley, 19 N. Y., 374), or vested in Latting, the absolute title to the premises, and divested the grantor of all interest therein as is claimed by the defendant, are immaterial inquiries, in the view we take of the statute relating to the redemption of land sold upon execution.

The statute (2 Rev. St., § 46) provides, that such redemption may be made: 1st. By the person against whom the execution was issued, and whose right and title were sold in pursuance thereof; or, 2d. By his devisees or heirs; or, 3d. By any grantee of such person who shall have acquired an absolute title, etc. The right of the judgment debtor whose title has been sold on execution to redeem from the sale does not depend upon the condition of his title at the time of the sale or redemption. The language of the statute is direct and unambiguous. The right is given to the person against whom the execution issued, and whose title was sold thereon. It follows the person and not the land, and [515]*515continues for the period allowed by law, although the debtor meanwhile may have parted with his title. The right secured to the judgment debtor to redeem although he has conveyed the land, is often an important and valuable one. Where he has conveyed with warranty, he is enabled thereby to protect the title of his grantee, and secure himself against liability, and if he has received a full consideration for the land, it is just and equitable, that he should discharge it by redemption, from the lien acquired by the purchaser on the sale, although he may not have bound himself by any covenant to do so. Bor is there any incongruity, in holding that the right of redemption coexists in the judgment debtor and his grantee. Where the former has conveyed the land his redemption will inure to the benefit of the holder of the legal title, and the owner has the means of protecting his own interest, if the judgment debtor is either unable or unwilling to make the redemption.

In Bodine v. Moore (18 N. Y., 347), the right of the defendant to have surplus moneys, arising from a mortgage sale, applied upon the defendant’s judgment, was sustained upon the ground that the application of a portion of the proceeds of the sale, to pay a prior judgment, upon which the land had been sold, four months before- the sale on the mortgage, was in judgment of law a redemption by the judgment debtor, and let in the defendant’s judgment as a lien upon the surplus moneys. And, in Chautauqua Co. Bank v. Risley (19 N. Y., 373) Comstock, J., speaking of the right of the judgment debtor to redeem- says: “ The right is secured to him as the judgment debtor, by the terms of the statute, notwithstanding he may have parted with all his interest in the land.”

Francis Price was, therefore, entitled to redeem from the sale on the Brinckerhoff judgment, notwithstanding the conveyance to Batting, and independently of the character of that conveyance; and if there was a redemption by him, the certificate of sale became by the express terms of the statute, null and void. (§ 49.)

[516]*516The title of the owner of land sold on execution is not divested by the sale, and the effect of a redemption by him or on his behalf is to discharge the land from the specific lien acquired by the purchaser.

This ease depends upon the question whether there was a redemption, by the judgment debtor, from the sale on the Brinckerhoff judgment. To establish such redemption the plaintiff proved a receipt, signed by the sheriff, Westervelt, in his official character, dated April 10, 1849, entitled in the action of Brinckerhoff v. Price, by which the sheriff acknowledged that he had received from Francis Price, the defendant in the action, $72.05, to redeem property sold upon execution therein April 13,1848, the said amount being (as stated in the receipt) the purchase-money, at ten per cent interest, for all the property sold by the sheriff on that day on the execution. Below the receipt, on the same paper, was a memorandum of Mr. Adriance, an attorney, indicating that he had paid the sheriff the money mentioned, and taken the receipt for Francis Price. It was admitted that the sale on the execution embraced several parcels of land, in addition to the premises in question, represented by fifteen separate certificates of sale, and that the aggregate amount of the purchase-money, including ten per cent interest from the time of the sale to April 10, 1849, was the sum expressed in the receipt. Westervelt, who was sheriff during the years 1848 and 1849; his under-sheriff; Price, the judgment debtor; and Adriance had all died several years before the trial. One Lawrence, in March, .1852, purchased of Price (to whom Latting had in 1850 reconveyed the land embraced in the receiver’s deed) twenty-two lots, sold on the execution, not embracing the premises in question. The attorneys employed by Lawrence to examine the title at the time of the purchase, delivered to him, with the deed from Price, the sheriff’s receipt, and the land conveyed to Lawrence by Price has been held since that time under that deed. The certificate of sale of the premises in question was assigned [517]*517by Richardson, the purchaser, to one Findull, in November, 1866, eighteen years after the sale, and October 19, 1867, Kelly, then sheriff, by a conveyance purporting to have been made pursuant to the sale on execution in April, 1848, and which recited, “that it is alleged that redemption of the premises had not been made,” conveyed the premises to Findull. The plaintiff derives title from one Daly, by deed, dated September 21, 1853, who was the grantee of Price, under a deed dated November 20, 1851. Her deed was recorded February 4, 1854, and she took actual possession of the premises by her tenants in 1858, and was in possession at the time the sheriff’s certificate was assigned to Findull, and when the sheriffs deed was executed, and when the defendant took his conveyance from Findull’s grantee.

By the Revised Statutes, payment, on redemption by the judgment debtor, may be made to the purchaser, his personal representatives or assigns, or “ to the officer who made the sale, for the use of the purchaser.” (§ 45.) Where the sale is made by a deputy of the sheriff, either the sheriff or the deputy is the officer who made the sale, within the purview of this statute, and payment may be made to either.

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11 N.Y. 507, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/livingston-v-arnoux-ny-1874.