Case Name: A. H. McDonough v. Mary and P. H. Cross
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1874
Citations: 40 Tex. 251
Docket Number: 
Parties: A. H. McDonough v. Mary and P. H. Cross.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Reports
Volume: 40
Pages: 251–289

Head Matter:
A. H. McDonough v. Mary and P. H. Cross.
1. An executor, with power to administer without control of the Probate* Court, for the purpose of partition, and with the consent of the devisees, • sold a tract of land on a credit of twelve months, giving a bond for title ■ upon the payment of the purchase money, the purchaser giving separate notes for the proportional amount of the purchase money to each devisee interested in the land. Upon maturity of the notes one of the holders obtained a judgment and order of sale against the purchaser, and under same purchased the entire tract. Held, that such purchaser took only such title as was held by the judgment debtor; and the purchase • money due the other devisees not having been paid, such purchaser took only an interest in the land proportionate to that the note upon which judgment was rendered, bore to the entire purchase money.
a. A judgment against an executor with power to administer without control of the courts of probate binds only such assets as are in his hands, and a sale under such judgment of land which had been partitioned among the heirs prior to the suit upon which judgment was rendered was void and passed no title.
On Rehearing.
3. It seems a reasonable if not necessary construction of wills authorizing executors to administer and settle estates independently of supervision and control of the probate jurisdiction of the courts, and where there are no terms of restriction upon their authority in the will, that they may do whatever is necessary for the full and complete settlement of the estate which they might do under the authority and order of the court if charged with the administration subject to its control by the will.
4 Such executors may sell property for the payment of debts of the estate, or the discharge of any other trust directly or exclusively committed to them by the will; but doubtful whether such executors can make partition of an estate, or sell land to effect a partition.
■5. Such executors may determine when to surrender the estate to the heirs or devisees, free from any claim thereto for the purpose of administration;; and upon such delivery of the estate to the devisees it ceases to bo assets in the hands of the executors, but passes to the devisees, subject to the debts of the estate.
6. Under a judgment against such executors subsequent to the delivery of the estate to the devisees, the estate so delivered is not subject to execution, and a sale under such judgment, of such estate, would pass no title.
7. The delivery of property to the devisees, or the sale made by the executor, with consent and approval of all the devisees, for purpose of distribution, passed the estate from the hands of such executor, and thereafter such estate was not assets, .and the sale under execution against the executor was void.
8. Neither the devisees, nor a purchaser from them, or the executor, are chargeable with a knowledge of the debts of the estate, or the means in the hands of the executor for their payment.
9. In the absence of anything from which the contrary inference should be drawn, it is presumed that an executor assuming the trust of adminis- . tering without control of the probate court does not surrender it until he has discharged all the duties which he knows are imposed on him; the judgment, therefore, against the executor would be valid, and bind any assets in his hands.
10. The purchaser at executor’s sale, under such valid judgment, of land which had passed to the possession of the devisees, and so taking no title, having discharged such valid judgment, is entitled to be subrogated to the rights of the creditor, and pursue the assets in the hands of .the devisees.
11. The vendor’s lien is an implied lien, a mere equity, incident to the contract for the sale of the land, if the purchase money be not secured otherwise: but if an express lien is retained, or other security taken, unless it clearly appear that the implied lien is also retained, it is to be taken as waived.
12. In case óf an express lien or mortgage to secure the payment of different creditors, whose debts are due at the same time and. are not by the mortgage or contract giving the lion placed on a different footing, neither of such creditors is entitled to a priority over the others, and in general all of such creditors are necessary parties in a suit to enforce the lien.
13. While, as a general rule, the diligent creditor may have advantage over others of equal standing otherwise, still the vendor’s lien for the purchase money due one of several vendors for his undivided" interest in the land sold can only attach to his own interest in the land, nor can it be enforced against the share of any of the other tenants in. common holding a like security.
14. The holder of the one of several notes given to the several devisees, for the share to each respectively (title bond only having been executed to the vendee), having taken possession, after maturity of the notes, of part of the land, could not be evicted by one of the other tenants in common, nor by one holding under proceedings to enforce the payment of one of the other notes against the land.
15. In an action by one claiming the whole tract of land, under proceedings by one of several devisees holding such notes, the other devisee's, or those holding such notes given to such devisees, could properly intervene and set up their rights.
Appeal from Rusk. Tried below before the Hon. J. B. Williamson.
W. H. Morris, for appellant.
The will, by its terms, not coming within the jurisdiction of the county court for administration, leaves W. J. Smith, the executor, a trustee merely to execute its powers outside of the court and under the law regulating ordinary trusts. (Langley v. Harris, 23 Texas, 564.)
It is true that the legal title by the death of B. H. Smith was cast on his legatees. It is equally true that the title thus vested is subject to the trust imposed, by the will. The property descends to the legatees subject to the execution of the powers of the will.. (1 Sugden obi Powers, marginal p. 232, cites Reid v. Underhill, 12 Barbour, 113.)
The fact that the executor and the legatees, by agreement, sold the land for a division merely of the proceeds among the latter, cannot weaken the force of the trust fixed by the terms of the will to first pay the debts of the •testator; more especially when suit, at the time of the •sale and before, was pending on the note of the testator, ¡thereby charging all parties with notice of its existence. If a power be badly executed, it may, in many cases, be re-exercised in a valid manner. (1 Sugden on Powers, marginal p. 354.)
A court will not permit the negligence or accident of a •trustee, or other circumstances, to disappoint the interests of those for whose benefit he is called upon to execute the trust. (Hill on Trustees, marginal p. 67.) 'The executor must follow the powers of the will. (1 Sugden on Powers, marginal p. 117.)
And the acts of the executor and legatees cannot re•volce or suspend the power. (1 Sugden on Powers, marginal p. 45; Id., p. -49, 7th paragraph.)
The unauthorized sale of the land to M. L. Durham, as stated in the facts, did not impair the right of Earle to pursue the land in the hands of the executor for the satisfaction of his debt against the testator.
It is quite.apparent that the executor neither sold nor •intended to sell the land for the payment of Earle’s debt. Fortunately for Earle, the act of 1866 (Paschal’s Digest, .Article 1371) afforded a direct remedy for just such a .case. It provides that the executor might be sued, just as Earle sued him ; and when judgment was obtained, it authorized it to be rendered just as it was rendered — that execution might issue, which was done, and the land sold .at sheriff’s sale to the appellant. This is the title on which lie rests.
The appellees, .Cross and wife, must recover, if at all, on the strength of their own title. Claiming under Durham, they have only such title as he had. In the sale and division Mrs. Cross, as one of the legatees under the will, took one of the notes given by Durham to the executor on his purchase of the land. Cross and wife obtained judgment on this note against Durham, and a •decree to enforce the vendor’s lien, and became the purchasers of the land at sheriff’s sale under that decree, paying no money except the cost, but crediting a title under one thousand dollars on their judgment against Durham.
Thus it will be seen that Cross and wife appropriated to their own use this sum, while the debt of the testator' remained unpaid, although directed by the will to be first paid. On this purchase of Durham. for his notes at twelve months, taking the executor’s (Smith’s) bond for title, not a dollar paid on the purchase notes, and the whole transaction in violation of the directions contained in the will, the appellees, Cross and wife, seek to eject McDonough, the appellant, from the land, he deriving title by a regular proceeding to judgment on a debt directed by the will to be first paid.
It must be kept in view, that the executor and the legatees acted with full notice of the existence of the debt of Earle against the estate; in any event, as privies in estate, they are charged with notice.
A purchaser at sheriff’s sale, with notice of outstanding equities that existed against the property at the time the judgment was rendered, takes the property subject to such equities. (Blankenship v. Douglas, 26 Texas, 225.)
Durham could not have recovered against executor Smith without payment of the notes given for the land. How can Cross and wife, claiming under him, occupy a better position ? (Watkins v. Edwards, 23 Texas, 443; Mitchell v. Puckett, 23 Texas, 573.)
The legal conclusion follows, that the appellees, Cross and wife, holding by their purchase of the title of Durham merely, cannot thus maintain their action of trespass to try title in this case.
Wm. Steadman and A. M. Jackson, also for appellant.
I.- The executor had no power of sale, and his deed even could have conferred no title. But even if he had the power of salé, his title bond could have conveyed no title upon which an action of trespass to try title could have been maintained, in the absence of payment of the purchase money.
An equitable title, to support the action of trespass to try title, must be such an one as would entitle the plaintiff to maintain a bill for specific performance. (Miller v. Alexander, 8 Texas, 42.)
The asserted title of Mrs. Cross is not derived from the will of B. H. Smith, the testator. She was never entitled to anything under that will. Whatever pretense.of right she may have is derived solely from the decree she obtained against Durham, the purchaser at the pretended executor’s “sale for distribution.” The utmost possible for that decree to accomplish was the sale of whatever interest Durham had in the land. And what interest did Durham have ? He had never paid a dollar on his purchase of the land. Ho conveyance of the land had ever been made to him. He had executed his notes for the purchase money, payable twelve months after their date, and he held the executor’s bond for title when all the notes should be paid. What title, then, or what interest, did Durham have in the land at the time of the decree' against him in favor of Cross and wife, upon which alone they now stand ? We assert most positively that he had no title whatever, and no interest authorizing him to call for a title. Even if there had been no debt against B. H. Smith’s estate, the utmost claim that Durham had was his right to pay up all the notes and interest, and thus entitle himself to a title. No act or conveyance of his could possibly have transferred to another any greater right than that, and even that right was precarious after the notes had matured, and liable at any moment to be extinguished by his vendors. Nor could the law and its instrumentalities, the courts and their process, transfer from Durham any other or greater right than he was possessed of.
But we may be asked, where was the title to the land, say, on the sixth of August, 1868, the day after it was bid off by Mrs. Cross? The answer is not difficult, when the facts are kept in view; it .was still in the devisees of B. H. Smith’s will. Nothing had then been done to divest them of it.
Surely no lawyer will, on a full understanding of this record, maintain that the so-called executor’s “sale for distribution” divested the title out of the devisees, in whom, by the positive provision of our statute (Pas. Dig., Art. 1373), it was vested by Smith’s will. For let it be conceded that a full and valid assent was given to that sale by each and all of the devisees, minors as well as adults, what difference could that make ? That sale did not purport or import a transfer of the title until all of the purchase money notes should be paid. That so-called sale was a pure executory contract on both sides. No sort of a conveyance was made by the vendors, nor was any consideration paid by the vendee. That contract expressly stipulated that no title should pass while any of the purchase money remained unpaid. The assent of the devisees, therefore, was to an executory contract which expressly withheld the title until the occurrence of an event, which has never yet occurred, to-wit, the payment of all the purchase money. There never was an assent or a ratification, by any of the. devisees, of or to a contract which could divest them of the title so long as any of the purchase money remained unpaid; and as the purchase money never was paid by Durham, or by any one in his right or behalf, it is perfectly manifest that neither the legal nor equitable title of the devisees, was affected by the so-called sale, or by their assent to or participation in it. And not having passed from them to Durham, it could never have passed from him to Mrs. Cross; either by his own transfer or by a judicial sale of his property. And thus it is demonstrated that the sheriff’s sale of August 5, 1868, to Mr. Cross, left the title exactly where it was before,. to-wit, in the devisees, of B. H. Smith’s will.
II. We next proceed to show that the title of the- appellant, McDonough, defendant in the court below, was and is good and indefeasible against either the appellees or the intervenors.
All the parties litigant claim under B. H. Smith, deceased. There is no dispute that after his death, and on the probate of his will, in April, 1863, his title passed under our law to his devisees. (Pas. Dig., Art. 1373.) There is no dispute that his will appointed W. J. Smith as executor, nor that this executor assumed the trust; and, in fact, the present claims of the appellees, and also of the intervenors, are based upon the acts of this executor. Except for the purposes of inventory and probate, the estate and the executor were exempted by the will from the control or jurisdiction of the probate court. But they were not exempted, and could not have been exempted, from the law of the land. In 1863, when the title vested in B. H. Smith’s devisees, a statute of this State was in full force, and still remains in full force, providing a legal remedy in all such cases for any person having a debt or claim against said estate. This.. statute is embodied in Article 1371 of Paschal’s Digest. It was enacted on the first of January, 1862. The remedy it gave to a creditor of such an estate was “by suit against the executor of said will, and when judgment is recovered against such executor, the execution shall run against the estate of such testator in the hands of such executor.” And no condition whatever was attached to this remedy except that the executor could not be required to plead to the suit “until the expiration of twelve months from the date of the probate of such will.”
No other “ estate of such testator,” .Smith, was left by him or inventoried by his executor than the land now in controversy.
Such, then, being the attitude of Smith’s estate in its relation to creditors, a suit for a debt of his was prosecuted to judgment against his executor at the Spring term, 1869, of the District Court of Rusk county. Execution followed, in conformity with the statute, and under it the land now in controversy was duly sold by the sheriff. McDonough, defendant below and appellant here, became the purchaser, and took the sheriff’s deed as well as the possession of the land.
It cannot be denied that the land in controversy “went into the hands” of the executor on the probate of the will. Nor can it be denied that- it went into his hands as assets of B. H. Smith’s estate for the payment of his debts. The executor inventoried it as such, and the pretensions set up by the appellees and intervenors in this suit are directly predicated on his fiduciary control and possession of it. The estate-which the devisees took under the will was in no way incompatible with the fact that the land was assets in the hands of the executor. Even if the devisees had ever got actual possession of the land, the executor could have recovered it from them for the payment of debts. (Paschal’s Digest, Art. 1373.) This record, however, not only shows that the land was in the hands of the executor, but further shows that it never was. in the hands of the devisees.
• The estate of B. H. Smith, then, on the one hand, and Earle, its creditor, on the other hand, were in that precise status and in that exact relation to each other which brought them not only within the purview and spirit of the act of January 1, 1862 (Paschal’s Digest, Art. 1871), but fully and clearly within its language and objects.
That statute expressly empowered Earle, the creditor, to bring his suit against the executor alone, and to have execution de bonis iestatoris. That was exactly the course pursued by Earle. He recovered judgment against the executor, on which was issued an execution de bonis testatoris, and under it McDonough bought the land, paid for it, took the sheriff’s deed, and now holds possession.
J. H. Jones and Martin Casey, for appellees.
The whole question in the case is, were Cross and wife entitled.to the judgment they obtained?
In Lynch v. Elkes, 21 Texas, 230, it is decided, that where several notes, due at different times, are given for land, that land may be sold when the first note becomes due. The rights of parties cannot be affected by the time the notes become due, but by the vigilance of those seeking to enforce their liens. Vigilantibus, non dormientbus, sed leges subveniunt.”
The presumption of law and equity must be, that after Mrs. Cross obtained her judgment and a decree to enforce her vendor’s lien, at the sale of the land it brought its full value; and she being the best bidder, and crediting the amount of her bid on her judgment, obtained all the title to the land. ‘ 'Qui prior est in tempore, potior est in jure.”
This principle is well illustrated in Fitzsimmons v. Ogden, 2 Cond. U. S. R., 7 Crunch, 2-22. The syllabus of that case is: “He who has equal equity may acquire the legal estate, if he can, so as to protect his equity. Between merely equitable claimants, each having equal equity, he who has the precedency in time has the advantage in right.” This appears to be a case precisely in point.
But here a question arises, could Durham, under his title bond from the executor, shield himself against a trespasser ?
Whatever title the executor had, passed to Durham by the title bond ; that was an equitable title, which may bo used offensively and by way of defense; otherwise, a purchaser with his title bond can have no security. Our decisions settle, that equitable titles may be given in evidence, and that title bonds are equitable titles. (Miller v. Alexander, 8 Texas, 42; Easterling v. Blythe, 7 Texas, 212; Neill v. Keese, 5 Texas, 23.)
Durham had the legal title also, for he was in possession; and as against the possessor on a sale by a sheriff, it is only necessary for the purchaser to prove possession. (Wilson v. Palmer, 18 Texas, 572.) So Mrs. Cross had an equitable lien on the land by her judgment, and by her purchase she obtained the legal title; and hence she has both law and equity to sustain her claim ; and coming within the case of Fitzsimmons v. Ogden, 7 Cranch, 22, she has a title preclusive of all the other claimants. This principle is referred to by Story in his Equity Jurisprudence, Vol. 1, Sec. 64d, where he says, “that precedence in time will, under many circumstances, give an advantage or priority in right.”
In the judgment against W. J. Smith, as executor, the land is condemned to sale to satisfy Earle’s debt, without having made his heirs parties to that suit, which is contrary to our statutes and the decisions of the Supreme Court. (Barrett v. Barrett, 31 Texas, 347.) And since Earle’s judgment condemning the land to sale, without having made B. H. Smith’s heirs parties, is a nullity, McDonough’s title by purchase under Earle’s judgment is also a nullity.
Long & Long, for appellees,
filed a supplemental brief of considerable length, but we omit that part of the argument which applies to the title of McDonough, because the court .concurred with the appellees on that point. As to the rights of the intervenors, it was contended:
The question between the different intervenors is-not without difficulty. The question may be stated about thus: Cross and wife, as guardians of a minor, and three intervenors, each hold notes of about the same size, given for the purchase of a tract of land to which they were entitled in common by devise. By way of dividing this land, it had been sold to one Durham on a credit, and he gave each claimant a separate note for his portion of the price, for which the law gave them respectively an equitable lien upon the land. One party — that is to say, Cross and wife — acting for the minor, enforced their lien for the purchase money by a decree and sale of the land, and became the purchasers of the same for the benefit of their ward, and received a sheriff’s deed for the same. Two of the intervenors in this suit subsequently obtained similar judgments, and each of them, in turn, subjected the same land to sale under their respective decrees; and Durham, the first purchaser from the executor, becoming bankrupt, his assignee sold Durham’s interest in the same land for the benefit of his creditors. Now the intervenors each claim the whole land in preference to Cross and wife, and in the alternative claim to hold each an equal undivided Share in common with Cross and wife, and the question is, upon what legal principle or analogy can they maintain either of these alternatives ?
As each of the intervenors sold and purchased the land subsequent to plaintiff’s purchase, it would seem quite plain that they can have no fair pretense that either of them can have superior title, equitable or legal, to that of plaintiffs. Nor can there be any reasonable pretense for saying that they hold the land in common as against the plaintiffs because they purchased at different times, under different decrees, and each took a separate deed to the whole land. Let it be remembered, that all these pur^ chase money notes were negotiable, payable to bearer, and were held by different persons. We know of no rule forbidding each holder of these notes to proceed to enforce his lien upon the land by decree and sale, without regard to the course pursued by the holders of other similar notes. The case cited from 21 Texas, 230, is explicit on this point. Even if it be conceded that it would have been proper for Cross and wife to have made the holders of the other purchase money notes parties, so that they might have asserted their claim to a share of the purchase money, if they had any such claim, it by no means follows that the judgment in favor of Cross and wife was erroneous, much less null and void; nor can any pretense be set up from this circumstance for saying that the in-" tervenors thereby acquired any title to the land, either in common or separately. The judgment of the court cannot be collaterally impeached, being a court of general jurisdiction, and there being no suggestion of any defect in its jurisdiction.
If it be assumed that the holders of all these purchase money notes had an equitable lien on the same land for the payment of each of the notes, it becomes material to consider what rights or interest was thereby conferred, by the existence of such lien, upon each holder of these notes. “A lien is not, in strictness, either a jus in re or jus acl rem, but is simply a right to possess and retain property until some charge attaching to it is paid or discharged,” when applied to personal property, as laid down by Judge Story. (1 Equity Jurisprudence, Section 506.) As applied to land sold upon credit, it is nothing more nor less than an equitable right, upon having the debt ascertained by a judgment at law, to apply to a court of equity to have the land sold to satisfy such judgment. In Texas the District Court, being both a court of law and a court of equity, renders a judgment as at law for the debt, and a decree as in equity to sell the land for its satisfaction. And this is all of it. If there be several purchase money notes, held by different persons, the right of each one must be independent of all others, and may be waived or enforced at the pleasure of each holder.
If, as in this case, the several notes are negotiable, the respective holders are not presumed or required in law to know who holds them or where they are. This conclusion results from the very nature of the thing, and could not be otherwise. Therefore, each holder has a right to apply to a court for such judgment and decree, and the court plainly has power or jurisdiction to render the same, which is final and conclusive, unless reversed upon .appeal; and having jurisdiction to render such judgment and decree, it also has power to enforce the decree by ■sale and conveyance to the purchaser.
If the present intervenors desired to have a judgment and decree to enforce their lien, it was their right equally with the plaintiff to have instituted suit for that purpose, or perhaps they might then have intervened and obtained •a decree that the proceeds of the sale, if insufficient to pay all the notes, should be paid pro rata. But their failure to take this course could not, by any means, oust the jurisdiction of the court to grant the relief claimed by plaintiffs. The plaintiffs’ suit for the relief prayed for by them was lis pendens, or notice to all the world. “A subpoena served, and bill filed, is a lis pendens against ,all persons.” (Cross on Lien, 140.)
' If these suggestions be true, it follows that the petition of the intervenors, so far forth as it sets up title to the land under sheriff’s deed to them respectively, only shows subsequent deeds in point of time to that of plaintiffs, and, of course, inferior and insufficient. And so far forth .as said petition is to be regarded as a bill in equity to set aside and annul the title of plaintiffs, derived from the judgment decree and sheriff’s deed in "pursuance thereof, it is totally without any merit or equity apparent upon its face. It seeks the relief without any allegation of either fraud, accident, or mistake, or any lack of jurisdiction in the District Court to render the decree upon which plaintiffs’ title rests. Being demurred to in the court below for this obvious cause, it was dismissed as a proceeding in equity, and this was most strictly correct, as the court may see by inspecting the petition. * *
Cross and wife are not bound to look after the interest of intervenors, for they might have chosen to forego their right to resort to this lien. By their superior diligence— and courts of equity are said to favor diligence and abhor laches — the plaintiffs turned their equitable lien on this land into a legal title to the same, by an open and fair application to the proper tribunal for that purpose. Who shall gainsay their right to do so ? They had a perfect right to pursue the course they did, and all the benefit thereby acquired must be respected by this court as having been legally and legitimately obtained.
Such is the rule as expressly laid down by Chief Justice Marshall in the case cited by my colleague, Fitzsimmons et al. v. Ogden et al., 2 Cranch, 2-22. (2 Cond. Rep., 395.) The equities of the plaintiffs and the intervenors may have been equal to the land ; yet the former had the right to buy up, if they could, the legal estate; Says the court in the case last cited: “ Though the equities of the trustees and the Holland Company should be admitted to be equal, yet the latter have acquired another title to the subject in controversy which a court of equity will never disturb. They, or rather the trustees, have got the fruits of their execution, and have obtained the legal title to the land on which the judgment only gave them a lien. Having at least an equal equity with the trustees, it was perfectly justifiable in them to obtain a. superi ority by buying the legal estate.” The same familiar principle is well stated in 2 Washington C. C. R., 441, in these words: “Where the equity of each party is equal, . the court will not deprive one party of the advantage he may have gained by obtaining a legal estate in property which was promised as security for a debt due to each.” (Philips v. Crammond.) Says Washington, J.: “The court will not take from the trustees the legal advantage which their vigilance has conferred upon them.” .
This doctrine of vigilance is not only a sound maxim in equity derived from civil law, ‘1 mgilantibus et non dormientibus leges subveniunt,” but equally of the common law. 1 ‘ The law aids those who are vigilant, and not those who sleep. (Brae., 175; 2 Burrell’s Law Dic., 1040.) This principle is expressly laid down by this court in Morris v. Jay, decided in December, 1872. Two judgments were obtained against the same person on the same day. The land sold under one of the judgments in January gave full title, and a sale in April following, under the other judgment, conveyed no title.

Opinion:
Walker, J.
We have no hesitation whatever in reversing the judgment in this case, but by the conduct of the parties some complications are presented which require examination and explanation from this court.
The property in controversy seems to be a valuable tract of land which belonged to the estate of B. H. Smith, who made his last will about the month of April, 1861. He appointed W. J. Smith executor of his will, providing for the payment of Ms debts, and devising the residue of his property to certain of his relatives, among whom are the parties to this suit.
The will was probated, and an inventory of the estate .returned ; which being done, the will by its terms withdrew the estate from the further control of the probate court.
At the time of his death the testator was jointly bound* with others in a debt to one Jordan, by note. Jordan-transferred the note to Earle, who brought suit against all the parties.
B. H. Smith died pending the' suit, and Earle dismissed as to him, taking a judgment against the other defendants; they, however, proving insolvent, Earle revived his suit against W. J. Smith, the executor.
But in the meantime, in 1864, the devisees consenting to the sale, or perhaps constituting W. J. Smith, the executor, their agent for that purpose, he sold the land in controversy to one Durham on a credit of twelve months, taking notes in such amounts as represented the individual shares of the devisees, and retaining the vendor's lien-to secure the notes.
The notes were delivered to the devisees, and Durham took possession of the land. No deed was made, but a. title bond was given which obligated Smith, the executor,.. to make Durham a deed on full payment of all the notes.
Willie, the minor soil of Mrs. Cross, was entitled to the-proceeds of one of the notes; his mother, acting for him,, brought suit against Durham on this note, and prayed for a foreclosure of the vendor's lien; she obtained a judgment and decree accordingly, caused the land to be-sold on execution, and she and her husband became the purchasers at a consideration greatly below the actual value of the land, and not even covering the amount of' the note.
The question now presents itself, what did the appellees gain, or what title did they acquire by this sale, as against the devisees under the will of B. H. Smith, or his-creditors 1 The answer is obvious. They sold and bought just what title Durham had, and nothing more; and at-best he had but an inchoate title, which could only be-perfected on payment of the whole of the- purchase-money, which has never been done.
This disposes of the pretended title of Mary and P. H. Cross, the appellees.
Let us now look after the title of the appellant, McDonough. He is a purchaser at judicial sale, to whom, under all the circumstances, the maxim caveat emptor must apply.
Under Article 1371, W. H. Smith, being the executor of the independent will of B. H. Smith, could be sued by •the creditors of the latter, and upon judgment, execution • could run against the assets of the estate in his hands.
But was this land, in any proper sense, still in the hands of the executor % We think not; some four years or more had elapsed, Earle had dismissed his original suit on the Jordan note as to B. H. Smith, had taken a judgment against his co-obligors, and both the executor and devisees might well have supposed that "this debt had been extinguished or abandoned when the land was sold in 1864 to Durham."
But under Article 1373, Paschal's Digest, the estate of ,B. H. Smith immediately on his death vested in the devisees, and this statute expressly declares that the estate ^remains subject to the payment of debts in the hands of the devisees. But the title under which McDonough, the appellant, claims, comes through a sheriff's sale of this land, upon a judgment against W. J. Smith, the expeditor.
We are clearly of opinion that the land could in no legal sense be treated as assets in the hands of the executor, and the title is not affected by sale upon a judgment .¡against him alone.
The creditor should have pursued the assets in the hands of the devisees, who are, in a legal sense, trustees ffor the use of creditors so long as any valid debt of their 'testator remains unpaid.
We do not think that this case is affected by the fact ¡that some of the devisees were minors at the date of the sale to Durham; the legal title to the land still remains in them, in that proportion, share and share, by which they take under the will.
We must not be understood in this opinion as setting aside the judgment under which the appellant claims title — that may be valid; and if so, it should be paid in full by the devisees, by which means they will relieve the land from the burdens of the trust.
Durham having failed to pay for the land, and not being entitled to specific performance, the devisees may have his title bond canceled, the land partitioned or sold and the money divided.
Under the view we take of this case, the judgment of' the District Court is reversed and the cause dismissed.
Reversed and dismissed.
Opinion delivered September 8, 1873.
A rehearing was granted.