Van Camp v. Searle

29 N.Y.S. 757, 79 Hun 134, 86 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 134, 61 N.Y. St. Rep. 349, 24 N.Y. Civ. Proc. R. 16
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedJune 20, 1894
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 29 N.Y.S. 757 (Van Camp v. Searle) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Van Camp v. Searle, 29 N.Y.S. 757, 79 Hun 134, 86 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 134, 61 N.Y. St. Rep. 349, 24 N.Y. Civ. Proc. R. 16 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1894).

Opinion

BRADLEY, J.

The purpose of the action is the determination of the rights of the parties, other than the defendant Searle, as sheriff, to the proceeds of the property of Benjamin Van Camp. He was treated as an absconding debtor, and, in more than 20 actions instituted against him, warrants of attachment against his property were issued, and delivered to Searle, the sheriff of Orleans county. Some of them were levied upon his personal property, and the others, and the most of them, were levied upon both real and personal property; and although, after the levy of the attachments, a large number of judgments were entered upon his confession, the controversy in this action has relation mainly to those parties in whose behalf attachments were issued, and levied on the property of the debtor. The defendant Searle, as sheriff, paid out of the proceeds of the personal property the amounts of the judgments recovered by defendants Mary J. Blood, Dellie W. Blood, Bidelman, Chester, Ooann, and Bice, and returned the executions issued upon their judgments “Satisfied.” He also paid to defendant Bruner $90.65 of the amount of his execution. Warrants of attachment were issued in the actions in which those judgments were recovered, and the levy of them by the sheriff upon the personal property was prior to that in behalf of any other of the parties; and those payments, with the sheriff’s fees and poundage, exhausted all the proceeds of the personal property, except $110.82.

The payment of the executions in favor of the defendants Blood is challenged for the alleged reason that their warrants of attachment had not the support of affidavits sufficient to justify their issue, and a like objection is made to the order for service of the summons by publication. The affidavits to obtain those attachments were alike in their provisions, and while they stated that Van Camp had departed from this state with the intent to defraud his creditors, and to avoid the service of a summons upon him, they failed to state any facts tending toi support such charges, and were therefore insufficient to protect the attachments, against a motion to vacate them. But no such motion was made, and as the money has been paid upon their judgments and executions, in discharge of the lien, the question of the insufficiency of the affidavits is not, as against those parties, available to the appellants. Code Civ. Proc. § 682; Woodmansee v. Rogers, 82 N. Y. 88. As the summons in each of those actions was served by publication, the sufficiency of the affidavits was essential to bring the actions within the jurisdiction of the court; and if they did not come up to the statutory requirement in support of the order of publication the judgments [759]*759were Aroid, and the plaintiffs in them acquired no rights under or through mesne or final process in their actions. Fischer v. Langbein, 103 FT. Y. 84, 8 FT. E. 251. The view taken is that the affidavits upon which the orders of publication were founded Avere such as to render the service of the summonses made in each of those cases effectual.

The objection urged against the application of the payment to the satisfaction of Bidelman’s execution relates only to the sufficiency of the affidavit upon which the attachment was issued. So far as the defendants Bidelman, Chester, and Bice are concerned, what has been said about the payment of the executions of the Bloods is applicable to them, and in a like manner to the amount paid upon defendant Bruner’s execution. As Coann is not a party to this action, no inquiry is required about the payment of his execution; and, so far as the processes which came to the hands of the sheriff were regular on their face, he was justified in the execution of them. Savacool v. Boughton, 5 Wend. 170; Sheldon v. Van Buskirk, 2 N. Y. 473; Woolsey v. Morris, 96 N. Y. 315. The first executions which came to him upon the judgments of defendants Blood were general executions proAdded for by section 1369 of the Code, and he paid them. Afterwards, and before those defendants became parties to this action, they refunded to defendant Searle the amount so paid them, and thereupon special executions, according to the provisions of section 1370, were issued to him, and he paid to them, thereon, respectively, the amounts of the executions. The former were irregular, and the latter were regular upon their face, for the purpose of collection or payment from the proceeds of the attached property. The error was cured by the refunding of the money, and the issue of the executions in proper form, and the satisfaction of them, although, by expiration of the term of his office, the defendant Searle had ceased to be sheriff at the time the second executions were issued to him. Code, § 706. The proceeds applicable to the discharge by payment of the liens of their attachments may be deemed to have been held by him for that purpose until paid in satisfaction of the executions, which were regular in form, issued to him. Lynch v. Crary, 52 N. Y. 184. And there seems to be no difficulty about the regularity, on their face, of the attachments and executions of the parties to whom the payments were so made, other than the attachment of the defendant Bidelman and the execution of the defendant Bruner. In that attachment it was recited that it appears by the affidavit “that the said defendant has absconded from the county of Orleans, the place of his residence, with intent to defraud his creditors.” The statute provides that the warrant “must briefly recite the grounds of the attachment.” Code Civ. Proc. § 641. The recital in the Bidelman attachment is not a statutory ground for the issue of such process. Id. § 636. In the affidavit upon which it was issued, the ground stated for the application is that Van Oamp had departed from this state, where he resided, with the intent to defraud his creditors; and some facts and circumstances are there mentioned, intended to support that allegation, and, al[760]*760though somewhat slender, they are such as to justify that conclusion, and give support to the attachment. For that reason the incomplete recital in the process is' not fatal to its .validity.

The execution issued upon the judgment recovered by the defendant Bruner is not set out in the record, but the court found that it was issued in the form prescribed by section 1369 of the Code. This was irregular, and as the provisions of section 1370 are imperatively applicable to an execution issued upon a judgment recovered in an action in which an attachment is issued and levied, and the summons not personally served, the execution was void. Place v. Riley, 98 N. Y. 1. The sheriff, therefore, was not justified in maldng payment upon that execution. The question as to the validity or regularity of the payments made upon the executions of defendants Bidelman and Bruner is not raised by exceptions of any of the appellants, other than Keeler and Salisbury. The real estate of Van Camp, upon which attachments were levied, was sold by virtue of executions on the 15th day of February, 1889; and on the part of the appellants, other than Keeler & Salisbury and the plaintiff, it is insisted that the proceeds of the sale were applicable only to the executions which were in the sheriff’s hands at the time of the first publication of his notice of sale, and at the time the sale was made, and that, as the consequence, the proceeds of the sale were not applicable to the execution of the Cornelia Brown judgment, the executions upon the judgments of Adason Kelsey, as administrator, etc., and of Keeler & Salisbury, or any of them. By the notice first published October 29, 1888, the sheriff advertised the real estate for sale on the 15th of December following.

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Bluebook (online)
29 N.Y.S. 757, 79 Hun 134, 86 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 134, 61 N.Y. St. Rep. 349, 24 N.Y. Civ. Proc. R. 16, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/van-camp-v-searle-nysupct-1894.