Case ID: tenn_14/html/0246-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Catron, Ch. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Dorothy Camp vs. Laird.
    A levy upon personal property, and the execution of a bond to deliver tho property on the day of sale, is a satisfaction of the judgment.
    . A judgment by motion is not authorized to he entered against a defendant in an execution, unless he has joined in the execution of the delivery bond: the judgment can only he rendered against thosp who execute the bond.
    John Laird recovered a judgment in the circuit court of Giles county, against Lewis H. Brown, Thomas B. Haynie, Baker P. Potts and Dorothy Camp, executrix of John H. Camp, deceased, at the-term, 1831, for seven hundred and twenty-two dollars. On the 15th September, 1831, a fi. fa. issued on the judgment to the sheriff of Giles county, which execution, on the 12th December, 1831, he levied on eight negroes, the property of Lewis H. Brown; Brown replevied the property, and gave a bond, in which Haynie joined, and Edward D. Jones became security for the delivery of the slaves on the day of sale.
    The property was not delivered upon the day of sale: the writ and bond were returned to the circuit court by the sheriff: and at February term, 1832, the plaintiff moved for judgment against Lewis H. Brown, Haynie and Jones, and also against Dorothy Camp and Baker P. Potts. The court rendered the judgment accordingly. From this judgment Mrs. Camp prosecuted a writ of er-rorto this court.
    
      Geo. S. Yerger and Rivers, for the plaintiff in error.
    The original judgment rendered against Brown, Haynie, Potts and Mrs. Camp was satisfied by the levy and execution of the delivery bond. However conflicting the authorities may he as to the effect of the levy, it is settled, in this_ State, that the levy and execution of a delivery bond is a satisfaction of the judgment. Young vs. Whitcomb, 3 Yerg. Rep. 297. The law has been so settled in Kentucky and Virginia. 1 Marshall’s Rep. 20: 2 Marshall’s Rep. 551: 3 Munford’s Rep. 432. And, although the property levied on is insufficient, yet if the bond is forfeited, it is a satisfaction, because the securities are bound for the whole debt. Love vs. Smith, 4 Yerger’s Rep. 117.
    
    If. the judgment was satisfied, no execution could issue upon it, nor could any motion be founded upon it.— The motion is founded on the bond by the express letter of the act of 1829, chapter 51. The court below misconceived the act of 1829. That act does not, as the court erroneously supposed, authorize the judgment on motion to be rendered against all the original defendants; it only authorizes it against those who join in the bond. The act says: “And when the defendant or defendants in such execution shall fail to deliver the property agreeably to the conditions of such bond, it shall be the duty of such officer in whose hands the execution is, to return such delivery bond to the office whence it issued, and it shall be the duty of the court, or the justice of the peace, as the case may be, to enter up judgment on the bond so returned against the original defendant or defendants therein, and the security or securities in said delivery bond, on which an execution shall issue, and a second delivery bond shall not be taken. The word , . ,, . . r ... . “therein, m the act, refers to “bond, as its antecedent. The act, therefore, only authorizes a judgment upon the bond against the original defendant or defendants, who executed or joined in said bond; and as Mrs. Camp did not join in the bond, no judgment could be rendered against her.
    
      J. W. Combs, contra.
    The true construction of the act of 1829, will authorize this judgment. When a judgment is rendered against several, upon which execuion is issued, and levied upon the property of one, who’gives bond and security to deliver the property levied on, the original judgment is satisfied; but the securities join in the bond as security for all the defendants, and the execution'of the bond by either one or all, by the act of 1829, authorizes a judgment against all the original defendants. The word “therein,” in the act of 1829, was intended to refer to “execution;” and it would then authorize the motion against the original defendant or defendants in the execution; and Mrs. Camp being one of the defendants in the execution, the judgment was correctly rendered against her.
    
      
      Since altered by act of assembly.
    
   Catron, Ch. J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

This court (Catron, Judge, dissenting) determined, in Young and Whitcomb vs. Read, 3 Yerg. 297, that a levy of property by the sheriff, and delivery bond taken and forfeited, is a satisfaction of the judgment, on which no second execution can issue; and if an alias do issue, it is subject to be quashed, as was done in that case, on the express and only ground, that the levy was holden in law to be a satisfaction of the first execution. This case has since been followed, and the principle applied to others, with the decided approbation of three of the members of this court, and its authority is not now subject to be questioned.

It follows of course, and so it was holden in the above cause, and those that followed the principles it decided, that the first judgment being extinguished, the plaintiff’s only remedy was on the delivery bond. Applying the foregoing principles to the cause before the court, and it presents no difficulty. Mrs. Camp was discharged from all liability on the judgment to which she was a party.— She did not join in the delivery bond, and was not liable to any new responsibility. The judgment against her and against Potts was without notice, not warranted by law, and is therefore void. It must be be reversed, and judgment be given against the parties to the delivery bond.

Judgment reversed.