Case ID: njl_22/html/0211-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ANONYMOUS.
    A sheriff, on sale of lands, cannot charge to the defendant the fee for acknowledging the sheriff’s deed or the printer’s bill for advertising: all the law allows for advertising in the newspaper is one dollar and fifty cents.
    In debt. Fi. fa. de bonis et terris.
    
    The sheriff of the county of Camden, having sold the real estate of the defendant in execution, J. B. Harrison, for the defendant, moved to retax the bill of costs filed by the sheriff. He objected to two items in the bill — 1st, a charge of $4, paid printer for advertising in newspaper; 2d, fifty cents, paid for acknowledgment of deed.
    Costs are stricti juris, and depend entirely upon statute. Penn„ 336; lb. 804; 1 Green 156; Spenc. 56. By statute, the sheriff is allowed $3.50 for advertising in handbills, and $1.50 for advertising in newspaper, and no more. He is actually prohibited, by express words, from taking greater fees than is allowed by law. Rev. Laws 489, 671; Rev. Stat. 464, 670. The sheriff must bear the burthens, as well as take the profits of the office. This point is of some importance to defendants, as in some cases sheriffs have taxed extravagant printers5 bills over and above the fees allowed by law.
    The charge for the acknowledgment of the deed cannot be supported. The sheriff is allowed $2.50 for making the deed to a purchaser of real property. If the acknowledgment is necessary to complete the deed, the expense is included in that fee. If not necessary, then the purchaser, if for greater security he desired the deed to be acknowledged, must pay for the acknowledgment.
    
      Browning, contra,
    urged that the fee of $1.50 was allowed the sheriff for his trouble in procuring the advertisement of sale to be inserted in a newspaper; but that the printer’s bill was an item of expense which he was obliged to incur, and in regard to which he ought to be reimbursed. The fee of $1.50 will not, in many instances, pay the bill of the printer. It is true that costs, at any rate final costs, are by statute only, but expenses stand on a different footing. Thus, in attachment the sheriff is necessarily allowed, for his expenses in keeping the property attached, over and above his taxable costs, and in some instances these expenses are very heavy. The fee is intended to remunerate the sheriff for his trouble, not to pay the printer’s bill.
   Per curiam.

Both the items objected to must be stricken out. The statute prescribes, in direct terms, the compensation to which the sheriff is entitled.