Case Name: Den on dem. Osborne v. Woodson
Court: North Carolina Superior Court
Jurisdiction: North Carolina
Decision Date: 1794-03
Citations: 1 Hayw. 32
Docket Number: 
Parties: Den on dem. Osborne v. Woodson.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Carolina Reports
Volume: 2
Pages: 32–34

Head Matter:
SALISBURY,
MARCH TERM, 1794.
Den on dem. Osborne v. Woodson.
In ejectment, the word tenement with metes and bounds is sufficiently certain. Sale of land by Sheriff, when there is sufficient personal property, is good as to purchasers. The want of tony days advertisement, or the land’s not being sold until a day or two after the day appointed, will not vitiate the sale. Dictum by the Court, if a Sheriff sells real property, when there is sufficient personal, he will be liable to an action by the party grieved, unless the party does not show personal property sufficient to satisfy the execution.
Ejectment. The declaration stated the lease to be of a messuage and tenement, bounded by metes & bounds particularly expressed, including a tract of two bun- deed ami sixty-three arres of land. Objected — this description is too uncertain. — The word tenement is so uncertain, the Sheriff will not know how to deliter possession. — Bat per curiam, it is certain enough, the word tenement includes all things which ¡nay be hidden ; and a tenement bounded in such manner as described in this declaration, is the same thing as a parcel of land so de-scribee!, and as certain and more legal. The Defendant’s attorney then informed the Court he was prepared to prove, that the Sheriff who sold this land to the Plaintiff under an execution issuing from Hillsborough Court, in behalf of tin* State, has seized the land when tlierp was personal estate enough in the Defendant's possession to satisfy the debt; and also that the Sheriff had not sold the land on the day appointed by the advertisement, but a day or two afterwards ; and also that he had not advertised for the space of forty days previous thereto, as the law required : and if the Court thought these evidences material, that he could produce them.— Thereupon Judge. Weiliams said, if the Sheriff sells real property, when there is personal enough, it makes the Sheriff liable to an action of the party grieved, but will not vitiate the sale to the purchaser ; otherwise no man would be safe in purchasing lands at a Sheriff’s sale, and that he had never known it required that the Plaintiff in such case, who was the purchaser, should prove forty days advertisement, which it certainly would have been at some- time or oilier, if it ever had been thought materia! or necessary ; and moreover, the Sheriff may lawfully sell the, land of the Defendant, where he does not show him personal property sulHrient to satisfy the execution; it would he absurd to say, that the sale of land should in no case be good, where, the Defendant had personal property ; were this the law, the Defendant might conceal Iiis persona! property. Suppose the Sheriff comes with iiis execution, and the Defendant shuts his doors against the Sheriff, the Sheriff cannot break them open ; and shall this disappoint the judgment creditor ? As to his not selling on the day appointed, but a day or two after, this is not absolutely unlawful ; lie may adjourn Iiis sale, sometimes for the benefit of the Defendant, when he expects a better day or more bidders, and gives notice to those attending, tiiat the sale will be made at that future day : sometimes indeed rhe Sheriff may have so many goods to sell to satisfy the ex* edition, that lie cannot make sale of all in one (lay ; and shall lie then be obliged to wait till another ten or forty days shit] 1 intervene? No, he shall continue the sale by adjournment till the whole be sold : — so the Plaintiff had a verdict and judgment.

Opinion:
Note —On the first point, vide Adams on Eject. 22, according to Which it sefms that in England the word tenement is not sufficiently certain in an ejectment, though it does not appear that the English cases had the additional designation by metes and bounds, vide also Byrd v. Clark. 2 Car. Law Rep 622. As to the other points, vide Governor v. Carter & others, 3 Hawks 328—Act of 1820, Rev. ch. 1066, and the case of Pope v. Bradley, 3 Hawks 16, decided thereon.—Jones v. Fulgham, 2 Murph. 364.