Case Name: Dawkins and Littlejohn vs. Daniel Smith
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1833-12
Citations: 1 Hill Eq. 369
Docket Number: 
Parties: Dawkins and Littlejohn vs. Daniel Smith.
Judges: O’Neall, J., concurred.
Reporter: South Carolina Equity Reports
Volume: 10
Pages: 252–252

Head Matter:
Dawkins and Littlejohn vs. Daniel Smith.
Judgments bind lands throughout the State when abstracts of them hare been forwarded to the Clerk in Charleston. And where judgment was obtained in one District, and land lying iu another was afterwards sold by the defendant: — Held, that it will be presumed that an abstract was forwarded to Charleston, and that the land was bound by the judgment. [*369]
York, June, 1833. This was a petition praying that a judgment the plaintiffs had obtained at Union Court House, might be satisfied out of the proceeds of the sale of a tract of land sold by the Ordinary of York District, to make partition among certain distributees, of whom the defendant was one.
The defendant in his answer stated that he had sold his interest in the land to Aaron Wilkins, for a valuable consideration; and Wilkins who was permitted to come in, in his answer alleged the same fact, and that he had no notice of the judgment. The sale to Wilkins, however, was subsequent to the judgment. Chancellor Johnston dismissed the petition, and the plaintiff appealed.
Dawkins, for the appellant.
Rogers, contra.

Opinion:
Johnson, J.
The ground on which the complainant's petition was dismissed, is not distinctly stated in the order of the ^Circuit Court, but it is understood to have been founded on the circumstance that Wilkins was a purchaser from Smith without notice of the prior incumbrance of the complainant's judgment. The case of Woodward v. Hill, 3 M'Cord, 241, decides that the judgments of the Circuit Court bind lands throughout the State, when abstracts of them have been forwarded to the Clerk of the Court for Charleston District, to be recorded conformably to the Act of 1189 ; and in the absence of any proof on the subject, it will be presumed that the officers charged with that duty have discharged it. It is then the case of a judgment having a binding effect on lands of which every one is bound to take notice. The object of recording them in Charleston, was to have some common place to which all might resort for information; and if with these means Wilkins neglected to inform himself, it is his own folly and he must take the consequences.
It is therefore ordered and adjudged, that the order of the Circuit Court dismissing the plaintiff's petition be reversed, and that the case be remanded to the Circuit Court for trial on the merits, conformably to the principles herein laid down.
O'Neall, J., concurred.