Case ID: va_29/html/0434-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CARR, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Miller v. Crews.
    March, 1831.
    (Absent Coalter, J.)
    Chancery Jurisdiction— To Injoin Proceedings under Execution— Case at Bar. — M. a non-resident of the state, causes a fi. fa. to be levied on tobacco, corn &c. in possession of L. the debtor; and C. who claims a legal right to the goods, joins L. in a forthcoming bond for the delivery thereof at the time and place of sale: Held, that C. if he has the legal right he claims, has a plain remedy at law. by action against the sheriff; and, therefore, cannot ask the interference of a court of equity to injoin M.’s proceeding under his execution and upon the forthcoming bond.
    William Bong, by deed dated September 18, 1819, duly recorded in the county court of Amherst, mortgaged to Thomas Crews, and William, Betsey and Nancy Brydie, two tracts of land in Amherst, about forty slaves, some furniture, and stocks of horses &c. to secure a debt of 8,320 dollars due by him to Crews, and a debt of 10,081 dollars which he owed to the Brydies. The deed appointed the 20th day of the same month, for the payment of the first debt, and the 25tb, for the payment of the last; and provided, that the mortgagor should hold and enjoy the subject till he should make default of payment, and that from and after such default, the mortgagees might “enter upon, have, hold, possess and enjoy,” the whole subject, real and personal, “and receive and take the rents, issues and profits thereof, without hindrance &c. antil the debts should be fully paid off and satisfied.”
    
    In October 1819, the mortgagees exhibited a bill in chancery, against the mortgagor and sundry of his judgment creditors, who had levied executions on the personal part of the mortgaged subject, praying injunctions to restrain the creditors from proceeding on their executions, a foreclosure of the mortgagor’s equity of redemption, and a sale of the subject to satisfy the debts, due the mortgagees. And, on the hearing of that cause, in May 1822, the chancellor decreed, *that unless Long should pay the mortgagees the debts due them, and the costs of suit, within six months, his equity of redemption should be foreclosed, and that the marshal of the court should sell the whole of the mortgaged subject for cash, and after defraying expenses, pay the mortgagees the debts and costs due them, and pay the surplus, if any, to the mortgagor, and ma.ke report of his proceedings in order to a final decree.
    At the same term, Boyd Miller, a creditor of "Long, exhibited a bill against Crews and the other mortgagees, praying, upon grounds therein set forth, that the execution of the decree of foreclosure and for the sale of the mortgaged subject, should be suspended: upon which the chancellor, instead of suspending the execution of the decree, made an order, directing the marshal to retain in his hands till farther order, so much of the proceeds of sale as should be equal to the debt which Miller claimed of Bong. This order was rescinded in October 1822.
    In November 1822, Miller recovered a judgment for debt against Long as the surety of one Penn, in the county court of Amherst, upon which he ordered a fieri facias to be issued. While the clerk was in the act of making out this execution, Long came into the office with one Wright, and acknowledged a deed of trust, dated the 18th November 1822, whereby he conveyed to Wright the crop of tobacco, which had been made by Long in the year 1822, on the lands mortgaged to Crews and the Brydies by the mortgage of September 1819, (Long having continued to occupy the mortgaged premises during that year, and having worked the mortgaged slaves &c. on the land, to make the crop,) upon trust, to secure a debt which Long owed to Joseph Echols, and for which Crews was his surety. And this deed was thereupon duly recorded. But it appeared, that Echols was not apprised of the execution of it at the time; and it did not appear, that he ever claimed under it.
    Miller proceeded to take out his execution, delivered it to the sheriff, and caused it to be levied on the crop of ^tobacco and 120 barrels of indian corn, and a small parcel of oats and fodder, then on the mortgaged lands, and iti Long’s possession, being parcel of the crops of 1822. Whereupon, Long gave a forthcoming bond, wherein Crews joined as his surety, for the delivery of the property at the time and place of sale.
    And then Crews exhibited his bill against Miller, Long the mortgagor, and the Brydies his co-mortgagees, setting forth the facts above stated; and alleging, that the whole subject mortgaged by Long’s mortgage of September 1819, was very inadequate to satisfy the debts thereby secured to him and the Brydies ; insisting, that the whole profits of the mortgaged subject, accruing after forfeiture thereof by Long’s default of payment, and during the pendency of the bill to foreclose the mortgage, and, particularly, the crops of 1822, made and reaped after the decree of foreclosure, were,, by the express provisions of the mortgage, applicable to the mortgage debts ; and if not, that Crews, who was the surety for Long to Echols, had a right to insist, that the tobacco should be sold, and the proceeds applied to the satisfaction of that debt, under Long’s deed of trust of November 1822; and praying an injunction to restrain. Miller from farther proceedings under the execution he had caused to be levied on the crops of 1822, and on the forthcoming bond taken thereupon ; and general relief. The injunction was awarded.
    Miller, in his answer, insisted that the mortgage of September 1819, itself, was a fraudulent contrivance to protect Long’s property from his creditors, and if not, that the mortgagees, having permitted Long to retain the in tire possession, management and control of the mortgaged subject, had no right, as against his other creditors, to the profits thereof that accrued during Long’s possession ; and that, as to the deed of November 1822 to secure the debt to Echols, that was manifestly a contrivance of Long, to anticipate and defeat Miller’s execution, and a contrivance in which Echols took no part, and of which he had no knowledge, *and neither had claimed under the deed, nor, as against Miller, could claim under it.
    The chancellor on the hearing, supposing the mortgage of September 1819, and the proceedings of the mortgagees under it, to be fair, nevertheless dissolved the injunction, and dismissed 1he bill. From which decree Crews appealed to this court.
    The cause was argued here, by Johnson for appellant, and by Stanard for the ap-pellee,
    very fully upon the merits; but Stanard also contended, that, taking the case upon Crews’s own shewing in his bill, it was not a proper case for relief in equity, since if Crews, or if Echols had right, they had also a plain legal remedy. And upon this question as to the jurisdiction, this court decided the cause.
    
      
      See generally, monographic note on “Jurisdiction” appended to Phippen v. Durham, 8 Gratt. 457; mon-ographic note on "Injunctions” appended to Claytor v. Anthony, 15 Gratt. 518; monographic note on “’Executions” appended to Paine v. Tutwiler, 27 Gratt. 440.
    
    
      
       This was the same mortgage, which was the subject of controversy in the case of Crews v. Pendleton &c., 1 Leigh, 897. — Note in Original Edition.
    
   CARR, J.,

delivered the opinion. It has been settled, by the case of Bowyer v. Creigh, 3 Rand. 25, and many other cases, that where a party has a complete remedy at law, he shall not be entertained in equity. Here, if Crews had any title to the crops raised on the land during- the year 1822, it was a legal title, the legal estate being in him after forfeiture of the mortgage. So if the deed executed by Long to Wright for Echols, was operative at all, it conveyed the legal title of the tobacco to Wright, the.trustee, and he might have sued at law. Whoever had the legal title might have sued the officer in trespass or trover, and had no need to come into equity. Nor is this a case of that complexion which equity will look upon with favour.

Decree affirmed.