Case ID: scl_24/html/0150-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Cuhia, per O’Neall, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State v. Michael O'Conner.
    Under our acts of 1721, (P. L. 116,) and 1785, (P. L. 379,) an- execution issuing out of the Court of Common Pleas of any district, creates a lien upon the personal property of the defendant, throughout the state, from the time of its lodgment in the sheriff’s office; and is not confined to property in.the district in which the execution is lodged. — [S.P. Woodward y. Hill, 3 M’Cord. Rep. 241.]
    
      Before O’NEALL, J., at Beaufort, Spring Term, 1838..
    
    This was a motion for a new trial. The report of the case, by his honor, the presiding judge, is as follows: “ The defendant was indicted for an assault committed on the person of a Mr. Barns, the deputy sheriff. The assault was fully proved: it was attempted to be justified on the ground that the defendant was in possession of some shingles, which the deputy was about unlawfully removing. The proof was, that five or six executions were in the hands of the sheriff’s deputy, in the -town of- Beaufort, against one James Maloney, of Colleton district: his flat, loaded with shingles, and consigned to the defendant, came down; and while the shingles were unloading, the deputy told the defendant, if he had not paid for the shingles, not to do so. Subsequently, the deputy seized upon the shingles, and was about to remove them, when the defendant, with a club and brickbats, resisted him. The defendant' in, striking distance, drew a club over the deputy to strike him. Maloney proved that the shingles were made in Colleton district: about a month before they were sent to Beaufort,' they were sold and delivered to the„defendant. The executions were lodged in the sheriff’s office of Beaufort anterior to the alleged sale. — I instructed the jury, that a.n execution lodged in the sheriff’s office of Beaufort, bound the defendant’s goods in Colleton. This I think the necessary result of the acts of the general assembly. The first is the act of 1721, P. L. sec. 35, p. 116, by which it was provided, “ that an execution on a judgment obtained in any court of the state, shall run and be directed into all the counties and precincts of the province, and be returnable into the same whence it was issued.” The next act is that of 1785, commonly called the “county court act,” (the last paragraph of the 37th section, P. L. 379,) by which it is provided, that “ no writ of fieri facias or other execution, shall bind the property of the estate real and personal, against which such writ is sued forth ; but from the time that such writ shall be delivered to the sheriff or other officer to be executed, and such sheriff or other officer shall, upon the receipt of such writ, indorse upon the back of the same the day of the month and year when he received the same ; and if two or more such writs should be delivered against the same person, that which was first delivered shall be first satisfied.” This last act has given rise to our doctrine of leins of executions, and it is plain from it that the execution binds from its lodgment, the property of the defendant, against which it is issued. The execution, according to the act of 1721, runs into all the districts'of the state, and it is of course issued against the defendant’s property in each and all of them.”
    The defendant now moves this court for a new trial, on the following ground : “ Because, his honor charged the jury, that .a fieri facias, lodged in the sheriff’s office of Beaufort district, bound the property of the party against whom it was issued in all other districts, although not entered in the offices of those districts.”
   Cuhia, per O’Neall, J.

This court concurs in the point of law ruled by the judge below. His judgment has the sanction of the case of Woodward v. Hill, 3 M'Cord. Rep. 241.

The motion is dismissed.

E. & A, Rhett, for the motion.

Solicitor Edwards, contra.

Evans and Butler, Justices, concurred. Richardson, J. absent from indisposition. Earle, J. absent at the hearing, but concurred in the judgment.