Paddack v. Staley

13 Colo. App. 363
CourtColorado Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 15, 1899
DocketNo. 1459
StatusPublished

This text of 13 Colo. App. 363 (Paddack v. Staley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Colorado Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Paddack v. Staley, 13 Colo. App. 363 (Colo. Ct. App. 1899).

Opinion

Bissell, P. J.

The principal question presented herein respects the right to redeem from a sale under an execution issued on a judgment rendered in an action at law, and the parties who may exercise it. The bill was drafted, the case tried, and the decree [369]*369rendered on the hypothesis that notwithstanding our statute which provides for the redemption of property from an execution sale and determines the mode and method of that redemption and declares the rights of both debtor and creditor, there exists outside of it and beyond it, an equitable right to redeem as in cases where junior mortgagees, or judgment creditors, have not been made parties to foreclosure proceedings. This we cannot concede. The right to redeem from an execution sale is a purely statutory one. It does not exist without the statute, and it is only under and by virtue of some statutory right that parties may attack the title which the purchaser obtains at an execution sale regularly held on a valid judgment. All the authorities agree on this proposition. Rorer on Judicial Sales, chap. 18, §1184 et seq.; 2 Freeman on Executions, chap. 23, § 314 et seq.

Many cases to this direct point might be cited, but the general doctrine and the supporting decisions are referred to in these text books. We do not intend to hold that there may not, under some circumstances, be an equitable right of redemption. This phrase, “ equitable right of redemption,” must not however be taken according to the ordinary significance of the words, nor must it be taken in its broadest or fullest extent. All we intend to hold is, that a party having a right of redemption, Avhich he has attempted to exercise under and. according to the statute, but which he has failed to effectuate by reason of some excusable fact, or where he has attempted to make it and his right has been refused by the officer holding the execution, or where by reason of collusive judgments which are fraudulent as to him he is unable to complete his statutory redemption, he may file a bill in equity setting up the facts on which his right rests, the facts which constitute his excuse or which obstructed the redemption, and making due proof obtain a decree which shall establish it. But in the end the result is, that the decree simply establishes his legal statutory right. There may be other cases than those which we have suggested under which a bill might be filed to this end. We do not [370]*370■undertake to state all possible exceptions. We hold that there is no such general right. None is provided for in the statute, nor do we find any has been established by adjudication. The authorities agree that it is only by virtue of a statute that redemption from an execution sale may be made. We thus dispose of one of the fundamental contentions of the appellees and the real proposition on which the bill was based and the decree entered.

We now come to a more pertinent and particular principle on which the appeal turns. Paddack’s right to redeem is disputed because his judgment was not a lien on the property at the time of the antecedent sales, and because there was nothing to which a lien could attach when he filed his transcript, sued out his execution and made his redemption. This contention is not supported by any well-considered authorities to which our attention has been directed. It is undoubtedly stated in some of the text writers and some of the cases that the judgment creditor must have a lien at the time he attempts to exercise his right. But those decisions were rendered in states where the redemption statutes provide that only lien creditors may exercise the right. The rule is held otherwise in Illinois under a statute similar in phraseology to ours, and in that state any judgment creditor may redeem. 2 Freeman on Executions, chap. 23, § 317; Karnes v. Lloyd, 52 Ill. 113 ; Couthway v. Berghaus, 25 Ala. 393; Pease v. Ritchie et al., 132 Ill. 638.

Unless the statute requires a lien, a judgment creditor may redeem regardless of the date of the entry of the judgment, providing he makes redemption within the statutory time. All other questions being resolved in his favor Paddack then, on the 5th of October, had a right to make redemption, and these matters, viz, the time his judgment was entered, the time he filed his transcript, the time he issued his execution, or the time he attempted to redeem, do not affect his right. There are statutes which require that the redemption shall be made in the sheriff’s office and between hours designated, as the statutes generally provide [371]*371that execution sales must be made between nine o’clock in the morning and sundown. Wherever such enactments are in force the courts hold that there must be an exact compliance with them, and an attempted redemption elsewhere, or under other circumstances, or at different hours, or different places, would be wholly ineffectual. However, any criticism with reference to Paddack’s procedure because of the time and circumstances of his redemption is entirely foreign to any real question involved, and in no manner affects his acts or his claim. Whatever moral criticism might be put on the extreme diligence which would lead a creditor to deliver his execution fifteen minutes after midnight does not impeach the legality or the regularity of the right.

Having thus disposed of the equitable right of redemption and the regularity of Paddack’s judgment and redemption, we have practically decided that Paddack acquired some rights to which the prior judgments, to wit, Staley, Morrison, Giant Powder Company and Stouffer are undoubtedly subject. What those rights are, how they were affected by what was done, has been entirely and completely settled by the adjudications of this court in an opinion which was approved by the supreme court. The case to which we refer is Floyd et al. v. Sellers, 7 Colo. App. 498. Sellers v. Floyd et al., 24 Colo. 484.

This case undoubtedly decided in the language of Judge Thomson that, “ the effect of a sale of land on execution is to destroy all liens which are subsequent to the lien of the judgment upon which the execution was issued, or that which it was used to enforce.” It also holds that the purpose for' which the judgment creditor is permitted to redeem is to revive his own judgment lien. This language was undoubtedly used by the learned judge as applied to the particular case and not as an absolute expression of the entire effect of a redemption, nor is it an attempt to state all the cases to which the statute would apply or the effect of redemption acts in all the cases which might arise under the statute. When the learned judge says that its effect was to revive a judgment lien, it was [372]*372not intended to decide that there must be a lien to revive, or that a judgment creditor who held no lien when he attempted to redeem might not acquire rights under the statute. This much of an explanation is necessary because in the present case, Paddack acquired no lien when he filed his transcript. The debtor had no interest in the property because it had been sold. It had been sold twice, once under a judgment prior to all the others, to wit, the Kaiser, and second, under a judgment of the Giant Powder Company. The estate of the debtor was gone, he could not redeem, and the subsequent judgment creditors could only exercise the naked right of redemption. There was nothing to which Paddack’s lien could attach.

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Related

O'Connor v. Mechanics' Bank
26 N.E. 816 (New York Court of Appeals, 1891)
Kincaid v. . Dwinelle
59 N.Y. 548 (New York Court of Appeals, 1875)
Pringle v. . Woolworth
90 N.Y. 502 (New York Court of Appeals, 1882)
Couthway v. Berghaus
25 Ala. 393 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1854)
Finch v. Turner
21 Colo. 287 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1895)
Sellers v. Floyd
24 Colo. 484 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1898)
Karnes v. Lloyd
52 Ill. 113 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1869)
Arnold v. Gifford
62 Ill. 249 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1871)
Ohio & Mississippi Railway Co. v. Russell
3 N.E. 561 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1885)
Pease v. Ritchie
8 L.R.A. 566 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1890)
Floyd v. Sellers
7 Colo. App. 498 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 1896)
Heath v. Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Co.
83 Mo. 617 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1884)

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Bluebook (online)
13 Colo. App. 363, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/paddack-v-staley-coloctapp-1899.