Tompkins v. Deyerle

46 S.E. 300, 102 Va. 219, 1904 Va. LEXIS 58
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedJanuary 14, 1904
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 46 S.E. 300 (Tompkins v. Deyerle) 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
Tompkins v. Deyerle, 46 S.E. 300, 102 Va. 219, 1904 Va. LEXIS 58 (Va. 1904).

Opinions

Buchanan, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

At the May term, 1884, of the Circuit Court for Montgomery county, a decree was entered in the case of Northeross v. Davis" Heirs, directing James C. Taylor and George G. Junkin, who were appointed commissioners for the purpose, to sell certain real estate, and providing that either or both of them might act, but before doing so they should execute bond in the penalty of five hundred dollars, conditioned as the law directs. They advertised the land directed to be sold, appending to their advertisement of sale the clerk’s certificate that the bond required had been given. One parcel of the land was purchased by George T. Gross, who paid the cash payment required, and executed bonds for the deferred payments, with A. T. Gross and A. J. Deyerle as his sureties. This sale, with another made under that advertisement, was reported to and confirmed by the court at its November term, 1884. At the same term of the court George G. Junkin, one of the commissioners to sell, was appointed receiver to collect all sale and rent bonds due under the proceedings in that cause, and was required to give bond in the penalty of ten thousand dollars. The receiver failed to give bond.

[221]*221At the May term, 1887, of the court, the receiver reported to the court that Gross was in default in the payment of the purchase money due from him, and that notices had been served upon him and his sureties for a resale of the land purchased by him. At the same term of the court a decree was entered directing George G. Junldn, as commissioner, to resell the Gross land at the risk and charges of Gross and his sureties, on the terms of one-fourth cash, and the residue on a credit of six, twelve, and eighteen months, after advertising as required by the original decree for sale. That decree did not require Junkin to give bond before selling.

The land was advertised and sold by Junkin, as commissioner, and A. J. Deyerle, one of the sureties on Gross’ purchase money bonds, and John H. Northcross became the purchasers, paid the cash payment, and for the residue executed bonds with sureties. This sale was reported to the court and confirmed at its November term, 1887. No order was made for the collection of those bonds until the May term, 1895, of the court, when the appellant was appointed receiver and directed to collect them. It subsequently appeared that the said Junkin had, before the appellant’s appointment as receiver, collected fromDeyerle andNorthcross the whole of the purchase money due from them, and had failed to account for a large part thereof to the parties entitled.

After various proceedings had, which it is unnecessary here to state, the court held that the payments made by Deyerle and Northcross to Junldn were valid payments, and discharged them and the land purchased by them from further liability to the extent of such payments. From that decree this appeal was granted, upon the petition of the receiver.

Two errors are assigned, but they both raise the same question, and that is, the propriety of the court’s action in holding that the payments to Junldn by Deyerle and Northcross were valid payments.

Unless the appellees come within the provisions of the Act of [222]*222February 25, 1884 (Acts 1883-4, p. 213), now found in chapter 167 of the Code of 1887 (sections 3398 to 3402, inclusive), their payments to Iunkin, who had no authority either as commissioner or as receiver to collect the purchase money bonds due from them, were clearly invalid. That act was construed in part by this court in Pulliam v. Tompkins, 99 Va. 602, 604, 605, 39 S. E. 221, a controversy growing out of the same case as does this appeal. The first section of the act provides that no special commissioner appointed by a court to make sale of land shall execute the decree until he shall have given bond in such penalty as the court shall fix, with security to be approved by the court or clerk thereof, and that no such commissioner shall advertise the sale of land without first obtaining from said clerk a certificate that the bond required by law, or by the decree, has been executed, and appending such certificate or a copy thereof to the advertisement. The second section provides that when such certificate has been published with an advertisement of sale, any person purchasing such land in pursuance of such advertisement shall be relieved from all liability for the purchase money or any part thereof which he may pay to any special commissioner as to whom proper certificate shall have been appended to such advertisement. The fifth section provides that the commissioner or commissioners appointed to make the sale shall receive and collect all the purchase money, unless by decree of court some other person is appointed to collect the same, in which event the clerk is required to issue notice of such appointment to the purchaser, to be served as other notices are served, provided that if any payment is made to a special commissioner making the sale before the purchaser has notice of the appointment of another person, such special commissioner and his sureties shall be responsible for the money so paid, and the purchaser shall not be responsible therefor.

In order for a purchaser of land sold by a commissioner of court under a decree, which directed the sale to be advertised, to [223]*223bring himself within the provisions of that act so as to be protected from paying a second time where he has paid his purchase money to a person not empowered to receive it, and who has failed properly to account for it, he must show that there was appended to the advertisement of the sale at which he purchased the certificate of the clerk, showing that the bond required by law or the decree of the court had been given. Ho bond was required by the decree directing the resale. Whether this was because the court was of opinion that the bond required by the decree of the May term, 1884, appointing Taylor and Junkin, or either of them, to sell, was sufficient to authorize a resale by Junkin, commissioner, or that the bond he was required to give as receiver to collect would protect all parties on the resale, or the not requiring a bond was a mere oversight of the court, is not material. The fact that no certificate was appended to the advertisement of the sale at which D eyerie and Yorth cross purchased ought to have, and in contemplation of law did, put them on inquiry as to the authority of Junkin to collect the purchase money bonds executed by them. The Act of February 25, 1884, was not intended to protect, and does not protect, purchasers of lands at judicial sales in their payments of purchase money to persons not authorized to receive it, and who fail properly to account for it, unless the facts exist upon which this protection is by the act made to depend.

The fact that the sale at which Deyerle and Yorthcross purchased was a resale does not protect them. The language of the act applies to all judicial sales made by special commissioners, appointed by decree or order of court to sell land. It is just as important that the parties in interest should be protected by a proper bond on a resale as on an original sale. In saying this, however, it is not to be understood that the court may not require the special commissioner appointed to make the original sale, to give bond sufficiently broad to cover not only the original sale, but any resale made by him. This is the practice in some [224]*224of the circuits of the State.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
46 S.E. 300, 102 Va. 219, 1904 Va. LEXIS 58, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tompkins-v-deyerle-va-1904.