UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Ronald and Gail Brown

 v. Civil No. 04-cv-466-PB

Opinion No. 2017 DNH 095

John A. Baldi

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Ronald and Gail Brown have applied for a writ of scire 

facias in an effort to collect on a 2007 judgment against John 

Baldi.1

 

I. FACTS2

John and Catherine Baldi at one time jointly owned land in 

Epsom, New Hampshire that abutted property owned by Raymond and 

Beryl Dow. In 1995, the Dows orally agreed to transfer part of 

their land (the “24-Acre Parcel”) to the Baldis in exchange for 

the Baldis’ agreement to allow the Dows to cut trees on a 

 

1 Writs of scire facias are not issued by federal courts but the 

same relief may be obtained through an appropriate motion. Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 81(b). Accordingly, I treat the Browns’ motion as a 

request for a writ of execution.

2 I draw the facts from the parties’ proffers. If any fact cited 

in this Memorandum and Order remains in genuine dispute, the 

party challenging the fact shall explain why it is disputed in a 

memorandum filed within 14 days. 
2

portion of the Baldis’ property. The parties agreed to make the 

transfer by means of a boundary line adjustment. A plan 

depicting the proposed boundary line adjustment was subsequently 

approved by the Epsom Planning Board and filed in the Registry 

of Deeds on May 18, 1995. Although no deed effecting the 

transfer was prepared at that time, the Baldis thereafter paid 

all property taxes on the 24-Acre Parcel and treated it as their 

own in all respects. 

Several years later, on November 2, 2004, Baldi recorded a

deed conveying his interest in the 24-Acre Parcel to his wife

for nominal consideration. More than ten years later, on June 

13 2015, Baldi obtained a quitclaim deed from the Dows 

purportedly transferring any interest the Dows had in the 24-

Acre Parcel to the Baldis as joint tenants. Baldi has explained 

that he obtained the deed to remove any uncertainty as to his 

wife’s ownership of the 24-Acre Parcel. 

I held a hearing on the Browns’ motion for writ of scire 

facias on January 24, 2017. Baldi appeared at the hearing and 

presented several arguments as to why the renewed writ of 

execution should not issue. I rejected all of his arguments 

except his claim that the writ should not issue because he did 
3

not have an ownership interest in the property that the Browns 

are targeting with their request.3

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Writs of execution are authorized by Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 69(a)(1), which provides that the procedure on 

execution in federal court to collect a monetary judgment 

ordinarily “must accord with the procedure of the state where 

the court is located.” New Hampshire law states that writs of 

execution may be awarded more than two years after a judgment 

issues “upon scire facias for the amount then due.” N.H. Rev. 

Stat. Ann. § 527:7. “Scire facias is a judicial writ directing 

a judgment debtor to appear and show cause why, after the lapse 

of the limitation period, execution against him should not be 

revived.” McBurney v. Shaw, 148 N.H. 248, 251 (2002) (emphasis 

omitted). I therefore evaluate the Browns’ motion using the 

scire facias process specified in New Hampshire law. 

 

3 To the extent that Baldi does not have an interest in the 

property that will be encumbered if the writ of execution 

issues, it is unclear whether he has standing to challenge an 

attempt to levy on the property. Rather than analyze the issue 

without briefing, I merely assume that Baldi has standing and 

move on to consider his substantive argument. 
4

III. ANALYSIS

The principal question in this case is whether Baldi 

currently has an interest in the 24-Acre Parcel that can be the 

target of a writ of execution.4 Unsurprisingly, the parties have 

different perspectives on the issue. Baldi argues that the Dows 

gave up their interest in the 24-Acre Parcel in 1995 when they 

 

4 Baldi has responded to the Browns’ request for a renewed writ 

of execution with a variety of unpersuasive arguments. He 

launched an unsuccessful effort to have the judgment set aside, 

which I rejected during the January 24, 2017, hearing. He 

invoked the inapplicable fraudulent conveyance statute of 

limitation in arguing that I lacked jurisdiction to hear the 

Browns’ request, see Doc. No. 133 ¶¶ 5–6, Doc No. 135 ¶ 11, and 

he incorrectly claimed that the Browns cannot bring their 

request because they settled a legal malpractice claim against 

their former lawyer for failing to pursue a fraudulent 

conveyance action against Baldi, see Doc. No. 137-1 at ¶¶ 2–5. 

My reasons for rejecting those arguments are obvious and do not 

require explanation.

Baldi also implicitly contends that the Browns are not 

entitled to a new writ of execution because their attachment on 

the 24-Acre Parcel is invalid. Baldi fails to explain, however, 

how a determination that the attachment is invalid will affect 

the Browns’ current motion. Accordingly, I decline to consider 

Baldi’s challenges to the attachment, which in any event should 

be brought by a separate motion.

Baldi’s only remaining argument is his claim that the 

Browns are not entitled to a writ of execution because Baldi has 

no property that could be a proper subject of the writ. The 

Browns respond by arguing that Baldi currently holds a property 

interest in the 24-Acre Parcel that can be used to satisfy the 

judgment. In addressing this argument, I assume, for purposes 

of analysis only, that a court can refuse to reissue a writ of 

execution if the court determines that the judgment debtor has 

no assets that can be used to satisfy the judgment. 
5

agreed to the boundary line adjustment plan. At that point, 

Baldi claims, he and his wife owned the property as joint 

tenants. As Baldi sees it, he conveyed his interest in the 

property to his wife in 2004 and the 2015 Quitclaim Deed did not 

give him any new interest in the property because, at that 

point, the Dows had no interest in the property to convey. The 

Browns contend that the Dows did not surrender their ownership 

interest in the 24-Acre Parcel in 1995 because the conveyance 

was never completed through the delivery and acceptance of a 

properly drafted deed. Accordingly, the Browns argue that Baldi 

did not obtain an interest in the 24-Acre Parcel until the Dows 

deeded him that interest in 2015. Because Baldi still holds 

that interest, the Browns argue, it is an appropriate target for 

their attempt to collect on their judgment. 

New Hampshire law favors the Browns on this specific point. 

Although the Dows attempted to convey the 24-Acre Parcel by 

means of a boundary line agreement, the statute authorizing 

boundary line agreements permits them only when the location of 

a boundary line is in genuine dispute. See N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. 

§§ 472:1, 4. As the leading treatise on the subject notes, “[a]

boundary line agreement is a clarification of existing property 

rights — not an agreement to adjust a boundary to a more 

preferable configuration, or a swap of a part of one property 
6

for part of another.” 17-10 Charles Szypszak, New Hampshire 

Practice: Real Estate § 10.01 (2017).

What the Baldis and the Dows attempted to accomplish was a 

conveyance. Real estate, however, must be conveyed by a written 

deed. See N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 477:1, 15. In contrast, an 

oral conveyance, which is what occurred here, gives the 

beneficiary only an estate at will. See N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 

477:15. Thus, the parties’ 1995 oral agreement to transfer the 

24-Acre Parcel from the Dows to the Baldis was not completed 

until the 2015 Quitclaim Deed was issued. Before then, the Dows 

retained their ownership of the 24-Acre Parcel subject to both 

an estate at will benefitting the Baldis and the Baldis’ 

inchoate right to acquire title at a later date.5 The 2015 

Quitclaim Deed thus transferred the Dows’ remaining ownership 

interest in the 24-Acre Parcel to the Baldis. 

Although I agree with the Browns that the Dows did not 

effectively transfer their interest in the 24-Acre Parcel to the 

 

5 To the extent that Baldi argues that the boundary line 

adjustment plan is a deed, his argument fails. “A deed must 

contain an indication of the grantor’s intent that the land is 

being conveyed.” 17-5 Charles Szypszak, New Hampshire Practice:

Real Estate § 5.05 (2017). The boundary line adjustment plan 

cannot qualify as a deed under this test because it merely 

subdivides the Dows’ land and reflects their intention to 

transfer the 24-Acre Parcel to the Baldis at some unspecified 

point in the future. 
7

Baldis until they executed and delivered the 2015 Quitclaim 

Deed, I remain unconvinced that Baldi currently holds an 

interest in the property that may be used to satisfy the Browns’ 

judgment. Baldi conveyed his interest in the 24-Acre Parcel to 

his wife in 2004. It is therefore at least arguable that any 

interest Baldi acquired by virtue of the Dows’ 2015 Quitclaim 

Deed passed to his wife. See generally White v. Ford, 124 N.H. 

452, 454–55 (1984) (per curiam) (applying estoppel-by-deed 

doctrine); Fadili v. Deutsche Bank Nat. Trust Co., 772 F.3d 951, 

954–55 (1st Cir. 2014). If Baldi’s interest did pass to his 

wife, he does not now have a property interest in the 24-Acre 

Parcel that can be used to satisfy the judgment against him. 

Because this issue has not yet been briefed, I direct the 

parties to file memoranda addressing this issue within 14 days.6

SO ORDERED.

/s/Paul Barbadoro

Paul Barbadoro

United States District Judge 

May 19, 2017

cc: John A. Baldi, pro se

John P. Fagan, Esq.

 

6 To the extent that Baldi has raised additional arguments in his 

filings, his arguments are obviously meritless and do not 

require analysis.