Case Name: Old Dominion Granite Co. & als. v. Clarke & als.; Same v. Jones & als.
Court: Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia
Jurisdiction: Virginia
Decision Date: 1877-03
Citations: 28 Gratt. 617
Docket Number: 
Parties: *Old Dominion Granite Co. & als. v. Clarke & als. Same v. Jones & als.
Judges: 
Reporter: Virginia Reports
Volume: 69
Pages: 196–199

Head Matter:
*Old Dominion Granite Co. & als. v. Clarke & als. Same v. Jones & als.
March Term, 1877,
Richmond.
Absent, Anderson, J.
Statute — Docketing’—Indexing’. -—C obtained a judgment against B and P, as partners trading under the firm of B & Co. He delivered an abstract of his judgment to the clerk of the county court of the county, wherein there was a tract of land belonging to P; and the same was properly entered by the clbrk in the body of the judgment docket, but was not indexed in the name of P, but merely in the name of “B & Co.” Subsequently P sold and conveyed ms land to O, who had no knowledge of C’s judgment. Upon a bill filed by C, to subject the land in the hands of O to the lien of his judgment. —Heed: That under ch. 186, § 4, 8, Code of 1860, indexing was not a necessary part of the docketing, and that the land was therefore subject to the lien of C’s udgment.
These were suits in equity in the Richmond chancery court, brought one by William R. Clarke and Harrison E. Woodward, partners, and the other by T. J. Jones and Thomas Knapp, late partners, to subject a tract of land in the county of Chesterfield, to satisfy judgments recovered by them against D. B. 'Bridgford and N. Tinsley Pate, partners under the name and style of Bridgford & Co. The judgments were recovered in the hustings court of the city of Richmond, the one first named in February 1866 for $2,390.76, with interest from the 1st of July 1861, and the other in April .1861 for $1,714.22, with interest from the 1st of January 1861. They were both docketed on the 15th of August 1866, in the clerks’ offices of the hustings *court of the city of Richmond and the county court of Chesterfield; and they were indexed in the name of Bridgford & Co., but no-t in the names of D. B. Bridgford and N. Tinsley Pate.___
At the time these judgments were docketed in Chesterfield Pate owned a valuable tract of land in ihat county. By deed bearing date the 6th of June 1868, Pate, in consideration of the sum of $7,500, conveyed to Hiram Woods, in trust for Alice L. Norris, about one hundred and fifty acres of this land. And on the 29th day of October, 1868, in consideration of the sum of $20,000, he conveyed to Allison White, of Philadelphia, seventy-one acres. And on the 22d of April 1871 White, in consideration of $20,000 conveyed this land, which had a granite quarry upon it, to the Old Dominion granite company. All these deeds were immediately admitted to record in the clerk’s office of the county court of Chesterfield.
The defendants to the suits were the debtors Bridgford and Pate and the grantees in the said deeds. Woods and the Old Dominion granite company demurred to and answered the bills. They stated and proved that before the conveyances to Woods and White were made counsel had been employed to examine the record for incumbrances upon the land; that the counsel again and again, with the assistance of the clerk of the county court of Chesterfield, examined the. records; that they took a list of every judgment against Pate that appeared on the index to the judgment docket; that all these judgments were satisfied out of the purchase money of the land; that the judgments of the plaintiffs, not having been docketed in the name of the defendant Pate, were not discovered, and therefore were not paid; and that after satisfying *the judgments known they had paid over to Pate an amount of purchase money much more than sufficient to satisfy the judgments of the plaintiffs. And they insisted that the judgments not having been indexed in the name of Pate, as required by the statute, they were not properly docketed, and were not valid liens upon the land as against them.
The two causes came on to be heard together on the 20th of June 1872; when the court held that the index was not a part of the docket, and the defect in that did not affect the docket of the judgments; and the judgments having been docketed before the conveyances to Woods and White were made and recorded, the liens of the judgments upon the land were valid against the defendants; and a commissioner was directed to make certain enquiries. And thereupon the Old Dominion granite company and Woods, as trustee, &c., applied to this court for appeals; which were allowed.
Ould & Carrington and Nash, for the appellants.
Sands, Leake & Carter, for the appellees.
DocJcetins' — Present Statute — Indexing Required. — Sec. 3561, Code 1887, provides that “Every judgment shall, as soon as it is docketed, be indexed by the clerk, in the name of. each defendant, and shall not be regarded as docketed as to any defendant in whose name it is not so indexed.” See also, Bartons’ Ch. Pr. (2nd Ed.) 1050, 1061.

Opinion:
Staples, J.
The appellants purchased the land in controversy , from Nelson T. Pate. Before paying the purchase money they caused to be made a diligent search of the proper clerk's office, to ascertain whether there were then any incumbraces upon the property. They did not search the judgment docket; but their counsel made a careful examination of the index to the docket,, and failed to discover any trace of a judgment against Pate. Thereupon the appellants paid the purchase money and recorded their deed. It now appears that the appellees had recovered judgments-*against D. B. Bridgford and N. Tinsley Pate, partners trading under the firm and style of Bridgford & Co., and in this form the judgments were docketed. The clerk, however, did not index the judgments in the individual name of Pate, as required by the statute, but only in the partnership name of Bridgford & Co.; and thus it was, the appellants, in making their search, failed to discover the judgments against Pate.
The question arising here is. whether the appellants are entitled to hold the land discharged of the lien of those judgments. In Beverley v. Ellis & Allen, 1 Rand. 102, this court held, that when a purchaser deposits his deed with the clerk for recognition, it is a full compliance on his part with the statute, although the deed is never recorded. A construction, said the court, could never be tolerated which would make the rights of a purchaser depend on the acts or omissions of the clerk, over whom he has no control, and with whom the law compels him to deposit his deed.
In the present case the chancellor, relying upon the principle as laid down in Beverley v. Ellis & Allen, was of opinion, that all the statute requires of the creditor to preserve his lien, is that he shall deliver to the clerk an authenicated abstract of his judgment and require him to docket it; that every other step must be taken by the clerk, over whom the creditor has no control, and for whose failure the creditor cannot be held responsible; and if the purchaser is misled by the failure to index, he must look to the clerk.
The learned counsel for the appellant has stK.ngly controverted this proposition. Pie insists that the statute under which Beverley v. Ellis & Allen was decided, is different in its phraseology from the statute relating to the docketing of judgments; and he has cited numerous decisions in other states, to show that *in cases of this character it is the duty of the creditor to see that his judgment is duly and properly docketed, and every requirement of the law fully complied with; otherwise the purchaser will hold the land discharged of the lien; and the creditor must look to the clerk.
In the view wc have taken of this case, it is unnecessary to decide this question. Conceding for the sake of the argument, it is the duty of the creditor to have his judgment docketed, the question still arises whether that has not been done in the case before us. As already stated, the abstract of the judgment was properly placed on the judgment docket, but it was not indexed in the individual name of the defendant Pate. The point presented is, whether "indexing" is a part and necessary part of the docketing. In other words, is the docketing incomplete until the judgment is also properly indexed in the name of the defendants. This ques tion must of course be solved by the provisions of our statute exclusively.
The first act passed upon this subject was in April 1843. A recurrence to that act will very materially aid us in reaching a correct conclusion. The first section provides, it shall be the duty of the clerk of the county court to keep in well bound books a judgment docket, in which shall be regularly docketed all such unsatisfied final judgments, decrees, &c., as any person interested therein shall require him to docket. In such docket there shall be plainly set down in separate columns the date of such judgment or decree, the name, description and residence of the parties, the amount of the debt, costs, &c., appearing in each case, and the amount and date of the credits, if any. We have here plainly pointed out what constitutes a . docket, the manner and form in which it shall be made out, *and the facts it is required to set forth for the information of parties concerned. Having thus provided for a docket, the act makes provision for an index as follows: "And, for the purpose of more convenient reference, there shall be made and preserved in the same books a plain and accurate index of all judgments, decrees, &, docketed, and every judgment, &c:, in the said index shall be set down in alphabetical order, the names of the debtors, and each of them."
The second section provides, that "if any clerk shall fail to docket without _ delay, in the manner herein prescribed, any judgment, &c., which he shall be required to docket, or shall fail to. make and preserve the index hereby required of him, he shall be liable to the action of the party aggrieved for such damages as he may sustain thereby." It will thus be seen that the docket is one thing, and the index another, and quite a different thing. Nothing can more strongly enforce this distinction than the language of the second section just quoted. The clerk is required to docket only when requested, but it is his duty to index, whether requested or not. While the statute imposes upon the creditor the duty of requiring the clerk to docket the judgment, it imposes no duty upon him with respect to the indexing. With that the creditor need not concern himself. Certainly he is not compelled to make any demand upon the clerk by the express terms of the provision. The sole object of the . indexing, as disclosed in the statute, is "for the purpose of a more convenient reference, to facilitate the search, to enable parties more readily to find that which is contained in the docket." The index is a guide to the docket; it saves labor and trouble in examining the docket, but it is not the docket itself, nor a part of it. We come then to the fourth section, which provides that "no ^judgment or decree shall bind the land against a bona fide purchaser for valuable consideration without notice, unless the same shall be docketed in 'the manner prescribed in the first section."
Now if this section had provided that the judgment shall not constitute a lien unless docketed and indexed according to the first section, the question would be free from difficulty. But-it does not say so. The forfeiture results only from a failure to docket; and as we have seen, the docketing is complete without the indexing. If the clerk fails to make the index as prescribed by the statute and the purchaser is misled, the latter doubtless _ may have his action for damages. But this is no concern of the creditor. Having docketed his judgment, he may safely leave the rest to the clerk, whose duty as to the index does not depend upon any act or request of the creditor. The provisions found in the revisal of 1849 are substantially the same as the act of 1843. The only difference is, that in the former the revisors omitted the phrase "for the purpose of a more convenient reference." It is certain that no material change was thereby intended. It was probably thought those words were unnecessary, and consequently they were left out in conformity with the plan of condensing all the statutes.
In the decision of questions of this character little aid is to be derived from the decisions of other states, unless their laws substantially correspond with ours. The statutes of the state of New York are perhaps more nearly like these of Virginia in this particular than those of any other state. There the law requires a record book of all deeds and mortgages; and it further declares that the clerk shall provide books for making general indices, and shall form in-dices therein in such manner as to afford convenient and easy reference *to the several books of record in their offices respectively. This act was passed about the same time as ours, in the year 1843. In a very recent case—Mutual Life Ins. Company v." Drake, reported on the Central Law Journal, 340, of April 13th, 1877— the question arose as to the rights of a bona fide purchaser as against 'the lien of a mortgage. There also the purchaser had examined the index, but found no reference to a mortgage, although in fact it was duly recorded. The court of appeals held that the provision in respect to indexing instruments did not show any ground for claiming that the index should constitute notice. .The index was simply required to be attached to each book; and all this was for the convenience of these searching the records, but was not considered part of the records. Judge Smith, who spoke for all the_ judges, in closing his opinion, uses the following language: "On the whole, I am of opinion that under our statute the index is not an essential part of the record for the purpose of notice; that in this case the plaintiff's mortgage was duly recorded so as to be regarded as giving notice to after-purchasers, and' that the lien of the plaintiff's mortgage is superior to that of the Baity mortgage held by the defendant Dake. In reaching this conclusion. I have not overlooked the practical inconveniences that may result from it in searching records. But the duty of- the court is only to declare the law as the legislature has laid it down. Arguments ab inconvenienti may sometimes throw light upon the construction of ambiguous or doubtful words; but where, as here, the language of the law makes it plain they are out of place. Inconveniences in practice will result, whichever way the question shall be decided. The power to remedy them is in the legislature, and not in the "''courts. Even as the law now stands, the party injured by the omission of the clerk is not without remedy, for he has his action against the clerk."
All that is here said is equally applicable to the case before us. Indeed it would be difficult to find an authority more directly in point. Judge Smith further states, that the statutes of Vermont and Missouri are the same in many respects as those of New York, and he relies upon Curtis v. Lyman, 24 Vermont R. 338, and Bishop v. Schneider, 46 Missouri R. 472, in which the same questions arose, and the same doctrine was affirmed by a unanimous court. See also the recent case of Chatham v. Bradford, 50 Georgia R. 327, upon the construction of a statute similar in many of its provisions to the New York statute. These cases substantially assert that the index is no part of the record, but a means of easy reference to the record. If the clerk fails to make the index, he injures those who desire to make the search. The clerk's duty is therefore to the searcher and to the public, and not to the holder^ of the deed. When the latter has placed his deed upon the record book he has done all the law requires him to do. Any one who will take the trouble can examine this record. The time and labor expended in making this examination is merely a question of degree. If the party pursuing the search is content with looking at the index, without an examination of the record, and he is thereby misled, his remedy is against the clerk, whose duty it is to prepare the index for the benefit of the searcher, and not of the holder of the deed. These views are not only in conformity with the provisions of our statute, upon a fair and reasonable interpretation, but they are intrinsically just and sensible in themselves. All that is said with reference to the holder of a deed admitted to 'record, but not_ indexed, is equally applicable to a judgment creditor, whose judgment is docketed and not indexed. Upon the whole, we are of opinion there is no error in the decree of the chancery court, and the same must be affirmed. Before concluding this opinion, it is proper to state that the legislature has recently amended the statute on this subject. And it is now provided, everv judgment shall so soon as it is docketed be indexed by the clerk in the name of each defendant "thereon, and unless so indexed it shall not be regarded as docketed. With the wisdom or propriety of this amendment the courts have no concern.^ Being prospective necessarily in its operation, it can have no application to the present case.
MoncurE, B., and Christian and Burks, Js" concurred in the opinion of Staples, J.
Decree apeirmed.