Case ID: ohio_6/html/0437-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Judge Wright", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Skinner v. P. Lehman’s Heirs and Adm’rs and others.
    Where an intestate estate is bound, as security, for one of the distributees for a debt in judgment, and the administrator, by an arrangement with the distributees, pays the judgment out of the assets of the intestate estate, and takes an assignment of it to themselves, the assignees can not enforce the judgment lien upon land bound by the judgment, but subsequently conveyed to a stranger.
    This was a bill in chancery adjourned from the county of Montgomery. The following are the facts in the case:
    Jonathan Stutsman owned sixty-six feet of lot 156, in Dayton, and in December, 1819, conveyed a part of it to the complainant. On March 4, 1820, he mortgaged his remaining interest in the lot to John Lehman, to indemnify him for being security on several notes given by Stutsman to the Dayton ^Academy- Some [431 of these notes were assigned to T. Squire, by the Dayton Academy, and in June, 1820, he took from John Lehman an assignment of Stutsman’s mortgage to him, and gave him an indemnity against the notes he signed as security. In August, 1820, Squire assigned the last of the notes with the mortgage to Huffman. In October, 1825, the complainant purchased the remainder of the lot from Stutsman, and took a conveyance to himself. On the same day he entered into a written contract with Huffman, for an assignment of the mortgage held by him. The complainant afterward fulfilled this agreement, and Huffman assigned to him the mortgage August 18, 1829.
    On November 2, 1821, the executor of Yanderslice recovered a judgment against Stutsman, as survivor of Peter Lehman, on their joint and several obligation, which was a lien on the lot in dispute; and in May, 1823, obtained another judgment on the same note against the administrator of Peter Lehman. The judgment against Stutsman was kept alive by execution without levy, until August 22, 1829, when an execution was levied on that part of the lot deeded by the complainant in 1825; the same mortgage to J. Lehman in 1820, which came by assignment to the complainant in 1829. The complainant at the time of the judgment against Stutsman, and when the execution was levied, was in possession of the lot.
    
      After the death of Peter Lehman, a portion of his heirs and distributees filed a bill in chancery to effect a sale of his lands, and a distribution of his estate. Pending that bill, John Lehman, the administrator of Peter, filed his cross-bill, setting forth the recovery of the judgment against him by the executor of Yanderslice, and that Stutsman was insolvent, and praying to charge the payment of said judgment upon the proceeds of the estate before distribution. A sale was ordered, settlement made, and a final decree rendered in September, 1826, that of the proceeds of the estate, the said judgment against the administrator of P. Lehman should be first paid, and the balance be distributed among the heirs according to their several rights. The sale, payment, and distribution was had accordingly ; and one share of the proceeds distributed to Brown, one of the defendants, who claimed as the assignee of Stutsman’s wife, one of the heirs and distributees of P. Lehman.
    482] The court, in their decree in that case, ordered that the *executor of Yanderslice should, on receiving payment of his judgment, against the administrator of Peter Lehman, assign the judgment to the heirs of the said Peter Lehman, which was done accordingly on January 31, 1827.
    The heirs of Peter Lehman, and the other defendants claiming their rights under that assignment, now seek to enforce the lien of the judgment of the executor of Yanderslice against Stutsman, by a sale of that part of the lot conveyed to the complainant after the rendition of said judgment; and the object of the bill is to enjoin them from asserting the lien by sale, and to disembarrass the title of the complainant.
    S. Fales, for the complainant, made the following points:
    1. The property of Stutsman having been conveyed by mortgage, left only an equity of redemption in him which was not the subject of levy. 26 Ohio L. 35 ; 22 Ohio L 86; 2 Bac. Ab. 715 ; Pow. on Mort. 339, 340, 369; 1 Ves. Jr. 431; 3 Bro. 480; 3 P. Wms. 324; 2 P. Wms. 416; 2 Atk. 290; Amb. 308; 3 Atk. 192, 200, 738; 1 Vern. 410; 2 Vern. 61; 1 Blk. 145; 8 East, 467; 1 Murph. 333; 5 Hayne, 53; 3 Johns. Cas. 326; 1 Caine’s Cas. in E. 57, 73; 2 Ohio, 223.
    2. If the judgment of Lehman was ever a lien on the land, it has boon lost by long neglect to levy. 5 Ohio, 179.
    
      3. The complainant, as assignee of the mortgage, may hold clear of a judgment of subsequent date. Sug. Vend. 475, 479, 605-608.
    4. There were two judgments in favor of Tandersliee for the same debt, and the payment of one satisfied both. This was done under the decree among the distributees of P. Lehman.
    5. The complainant is not affected by the decrees amongst the heirs, because he was not party to the suit.
    H. Stoddard, contra, insisted:
    I. That notice to the complainant was unnecessary, because the judgment had never become dormant. 5 Ohio, 179. The lien is one originating in positive law ; not arising from contract, notice is not necessary. Cruise’s Dig. 250; 2 Atk. 275.
    2. The complainant does not occupy the relation of mortgagee prior to the judgment; the mortgage was not assigned to him until long after the judgment; and the mortgage itself was only *one of indemnity, and inoperative, unless the mortgagee is [483 damnified, which is not shown in this case.
    3. When there are several judgments for the same duty, the satisfaction of one of them by arrest of the body, is no bar to proceeding upon the other. 2 Tidd Pr. 958 ; Hob. 59.
    4. The payment of the judgment by the security entitled them to come in the place of the creditor against the principal debtor, and the assignment of the judgment is operative and valid.
   Judge Wright

delivered the opinion of the court:

A great many questions are raised by counsel, and amply discussed in this case ; but in the view we take of it, it is only necessary for us to consider one of them.

In the proceeding in chancery for the sale, settlement, and distribution of Peter Lehman’s estate, all the interests asserted by the defendants in this suit were represented by the parties, and all the interest now in contest, except the complainant’s. By the decree, the judgment for the -identical cause of action with that now sought to be enforced as a lien against the complainant’s lot was paid. The judgment against the principal debtor, who in equity was bound to pay the money, was assigned to the heirs of Peter Lehman. The interest of those heirs was joint; the princi< pal debtor, Stutsman, was one of them. He was a party himself, and his interest was represented by Brown’s executor, his assignee. His distributive share of the estate of his wife’s ancestor was more than sufficient to pay the judgment against him. In equity and law, the instant an amount of money required to satisfy the claim his ancestor’s estate had upon him, for the debt paid to Yanderslice, became his by virtue of his right to distribution, that instant it extinguished his claim for so much of his distributive share of the estate of his wife’s father, and the same instant it extinguished, and, in equity at least, satisfied the judgment against him, which, under the decree was transferred to him and his coheirs, or those standing in their place. It is not within his power, by transferring his intei*est in the estate of his wife’s ancestor, to vest Brown, his assignee, with an interest which could defeat this effect. The assignee took only the rights of his assignor, subject to the same law and the same equities. Standing in the shoes of Stutsman’s wife, Brown could assert no claim that Stutsman him-434] self could not. *The situation of the combined heirs of Lehman is precisely the same. They represent, as a body, the right of their ancestor, and they can not, by distributing Stutsman’s portion of the estate of his wife’s ancestor, to himself or to Brown, his assignee, acquire a right to collect the amount of it again on a judgment, thus by operation of law satisfied, and out of property which, in the meantime, has passed into the hands of strangers or purchasers for a good consideration.

Suppose a man in debt mortgage land to secure the payment, and afterward a judgment is taken by a third person against him and his neighbor, which is suffered to remain several years without execution of the mortgaged.land, though a lien upon the equity of redemption in the mortgagor. While the judgment is in this situation, the judgment debtor sells and conveys the land to the holder of the mortgage, and becomes insolvent. He then agrees with his neighbor, against whom, with him, the judgment was taken as his surety, who has money of the debtor in his hands sufficient to pay off the judgment against him, that they will pay off the judgment out of the principal (and insolvent) debtor’s funds, take an assignment of the judgment to themselves jointly, and collect the amount for their joint benefit, by a sale of the same land he has sold and conveyed away. The fraud of such a transaction would be palpable, and if the law sanctioned the proceeding, it would be justly chargeable with all the consequences of tbe fraud. The law does not countenance or aid fraud. Chancery will stop the party sowing such a crop from reaping the harvest. That seems to be the exact case before us. The decree for the assignment does not change the case so as to affect the complainant, for h'e was no party to the suit and is not bound by it. However it may bind and affect the parties, it exerts no influence on his rights.

In our opinion the judgment against Stutsman is satisfied in equity, and can not be asserted as a lien upon the lot held by the complainant. The complainant may take a decree perpetually enjoining against the enforcing the judgment upon the lot in-question, to quiet his title as regards that lien, and against the heirs of Peter Lehman, who are defendants, and those representing the other heirs, not defendants, for the costs.

This view makes it unnecessary to examine the other points argued.