Case Name: Stanley C. Hanks Company and another, Appellants, vs. Scherer, Respondent
Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 1951-05-08
Citations: 259 Wis. 148
Docket Number: 
Parties: Stanley C. Hanks Company and another, Appellants, vs. Scherer, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports
Volume: 259
Pages: 148–156

Head Matter:
Stanley C. Hanks Company and another, Appellants, vs. Scherer, Respondent.
April 3
May 8, 1951.
For the appellants there were briefs by Aberg, Bell, Blake & Conrad and George Blake, all of Madison, and oral argument by Mr. Blake.
Lowell T. Thronson of Madison, for the respondent.

Opinion:
Fairchild, J.
Motion to dismiss the appeal is denied. The orders are appealable.
Stanley C. Hanks Company owned a judgment against one George Scherer. The judgment was rendered March 3, 1928. While the judgment was still unsatisfied it was assigned, on March 12, 1946, to D. J. Benedict. No execution was issued upon said judgment. The only proceeding taken by the owner of the judgment was in the county court of Dane county, and in that proceeding, on July 28, 1938, the following order was granted with conditions as follows :
"Wherefore, it is ordered, That said remainder interest of George Scherer in said trust held by the Madison Trust Company be and hereby is declared subject to the lien of said judgment, and that the said Madison Trust Company shall make no distribution of the principal of said trust fund without first satisfying or procuring the satisfaction of said judgment of Stanley Hanks Company against George Scherer, docketed in Volume R of Judgments on page 271 in the circuit court for Dane county and that the final judgment in said estate dated July 8, 1935, be and hereby is so modified."
Thereafter no action was taken, no execution issued, nor were any proceedings had upon the judgment until after the expiration of twenty years from the time of its rendition. On September 23, 1950, the said Benedict asked to be substituted as plaintiff in the original action and for the right "to sue over upon said judgment." This petition was denied September 29, 1950, and an order entered discharging said judgment of record.
In the appeal there are several approaches to the main question here involved, but all questions raised by the parties relate to the present existence of active energy in the judgment entered in favor of Benedict's predecessor in title, the Stanley C. Hanks Company, and against the respondent. The decision below, on September 29, 1950, that the judgment rendered March 3, 1928, "was satisfied in full and discharged of record and the debt predicated thereon extinguished" must be sustained.
The language of sec. 272.04, Stats. 1949, is positive, and the statute has been interpreted in accordance with that language. In 1878 the statute, then numbered sec. 2968, read: ". . . in no case shall an execution be issued, or any proceedings had upon' any judgment, after twenty years from the time of the rendition thereof." Sprecher v. Wakeley, 11 Wis. *432; Knox v. Cleveland, 13 Wis. *245; Brown v. Parker, 28 Wis. 21. Statutes in different states may treat the existence of' an ancient judgment differently. However, "statutes providing a time after which no execution may issue interpose an insuperable obstacle to any further pro ceeding for the enforcement of the judgments subject thereto. If, after the expiration of the time within which a writ may issue, one is in fact issued, the case presented does not involve an irregularity in the exercise of a conceded power, but an absence of such power." In those cases the belated proceedings "must be regarded as absolutely void." 1 Freeman, Executions (3d ed.), pp. 107, 108, sec. 29; Givens v. Campbell, 20 Iowa, 79; Cortez v. Superior Court, 21 Am. St. Rep. 37; Dorland v. Smith, 93 Cal. 120; Scammon v. Swartwout, 35 Ill. 326, 344; Merchants' Nat. Bank v. Braithwaite, 66 Am. St. Rep. 653.
There is no dispute but that the judgment debtor was absent from the state when the judgment was entered. It is conceded that a cause of action upon the judgment accrued to the owner of the judgment at that time, March 3, 1928. "Generally, the time for the commencement of the period of limitations in regard to actions on judgments is the date of the original judgment." 31 Am. Jur., Judgments, p. 344, sec. 846; see also 50 C. J. S., Judgments, p. 427, sec. 854. It is the contention of the appellant that the statute of limitations applying to judgments was tolled by the absence from the state of the respondent. The statute, sec. 272.04, Stats. 1949, however, applies to the life of the judgment, regardless of the residence or presence of the judgment debtor within this state. Under that statute the judgment has been extinguished.
A cause of action accrued to the judgment creditor upon the entry of the judgment, but the right, the essential element of that cause of action, is so tied up to and involved in the life of the judgment that the cause of action is limited solely to confirming or enforcing the judgment. It. is not independent of the judgment and is not a self-sufficient right. It can never rise in effectiveness or worth beyond the source of its energy, to wit, the judgment. Our rule does not leave the matter so that the judgment may be treated as a continuing right, giving a cause of action such as may be subject to the terms of sec. 330.30, Stats. 1949. That section provides for a tolling of the limitation for beginning an action in case of absence of the debtor from the state, but it does not set aside or repeal or modify the law as expressed in sec. 272.04, which reads:
"272.04 Execution, when issued. (1) Upon any judgment of a court of record perfected as specified in section 270.66 or any judgment of any other court docketed in a court of record, execution may issue at any time within five years after the rendition thereof, and when an execution shall have been so issued and returned unsatisfied in whole or in part other executions may issue at any time. But if no execution was issued within said five years it shall issue only upon leave of the court or a judge when the sum still due on the judgment shall be made to appear by the affidavit of the owner, his agent, or attorney; but no execution shall issue or any proceedings be had upon any judgment after twenty years from the rendition thereof."
Wisconsin adheres to the rule that statutory limitations upon judgments operate to extinguish the debt when the time limit has expired. Therefore in this case the necessary right of appellant does not fall within the classification of causes of actions under the limitation of the rule provided for in sec. 330.30, Stats. 1949, and to which the interdiction in sec. 272.04 does not apply. Here the judgment is extinguished, the debt is satisfied, and with it has gone the cause of action.
It is true that there was a proceeding in the county court under sec. 318.08, Stats. 1949, and it follows that the lien once created would endure until the rights secured thereby have ceased to exist. Here the judgment creditor secured a lien upon an inheritance to become the property of the judgment debtor on the death of his mother, and the remainder that was to fall to the judgment debtor was to be held by the trustee subject to the lien of said judgment. While sec. 318.08 provides a scheme for creating a lien, the nature of the lien here is such that it is dependent upon the continued existence of the judgment. The owner of the judgment did nothing further in support of or on account of the judgment or the lien until after the time of expiration had passed. Just what considerations may have prompted the owner of the judgment to prefer simply a lien as security rather than a proceeding by way of execution or action do not appear. In Brown v. Hopkins, 101 Wis. 498, 77 N. W. 899, 77 N. W. 1118, an execution was by leave of court issued a few days before the fulfilment of the twenty years of life for the judgment had come to pass. It was there held that the sale under the execution could proceed. We do not find it necessary here to re-examine the questions raised in that case, but an execution properly issued and promptly pursued differs decidedly from a neglected and expired lien as in this case. Here there was a remedy under the lien available to the judgment creditor against the property upon which he had his lien under the case of Pennoyer v. Neff (1877), 95 U. S. 714, 24 L. Ed. 565, cited in Schultz v. Schultz, 256 Wis. 139, 40 N. W. (2d) 515. The life of the lien as security for the satisfaction of the judgment under the circumstances here presented was not protracted beyond its dependency upon the existence of the judgment.' It falls with the judgment. No right necessary to a cause of action in the appellant remained. This requires the affirmance of the orders of the circuit court.
' By the Court. — -Orders affirmed.