Opinion ID: 1530929
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Is the Sheriff Entitled to Poundage?

Text: The Sheriff relies upon Code (1951), Article 36, Section 25 as establishing his right to poundage. At common law no such right existed. In England the matter was dealt with by statutes passed in 1444, 1587 and 1716; but none of these statutes has been regarded as adopted or in force in Maryland. Cape Sable Company's Case, 3 Bland 606, 631. In that case Chancellor Bland in an interesting and exhaustive opinion reviewed English and Maryland statutes and decisions dealing with the sheriff's right to poundage fees and the persons liable therefor. Neither the Cape Sable Company's Case nor any other Maryland case to which we have been referred directly determines the precise question with which we are confronted  whether or not an actual seizure of property is essential to the sheriff's right to poundage. The history of statutes in Maryland dealing with poundage fees or fees of like nature (even though not designated as poundage) goes back to provincial times, but involves relatively few Acts of the General Assembly. We shall refer to some of these statutes briefly later on. The present statute, relied upon by the Sheriff, reads as follows: Art. 36. Fees of Officers. Section 25. The Sheriff shall have as poundage fees computed upon the value of the personal property or the amount of the debt whichever is less for levying an execution at the rate of seven and a half per cent on the first Twenty-six Dollars and Sixty-seven Cents and at the rate of three per cent on the residue, but if execution be laid on any interest in lands only one-half of the poundage fees shall be charged, and if laid upon lands and the lands be not sold by the Sheriff he shall charge only one-fourth of the poundage fees aforesaid and if upon personal property and the same be not sold by the Sheriff he shall charge three per cent as mentioned above. Provided, however, that in addition to the above fees, the Sheriff of Baltimore City and the Sheriff of Baltimore County shall receive for his services in serving each writ of Fieri Facias a fee of One Dollar and Fifteen Cents ($1.15), and the Clerk of the Court shall not issue said writ until the person, firm or corporation ordering the issuance of the same shall pay said fee to said clerk, which fee shall be paid to the Sheriff when said writ was delivered to him. Poundage fees are ordinarily payable by the defendant against whom execution is issued. The Cape Sable Company's Case, supra ; Howard v. The Levy Court, 1 H. & J. 558; Eakle v. Smith, 24 Md. 339, 362; Gilmor v. Brien, 1 Md. Ch. 40. There is no claim that this general rule is not applicable in this case. The two cases last cited and Gurley v. Lee, 11 G. & J. 395, also show that poundage fees are not a part of the costs of suit. Since the adoption of Section 2 of Chapter 59 of the Acts of (November) 1790, the rates at which poundage fees are to be computed on lands taken and sold upon execution have been one-half of the rates applicable to personal property so taken and sold. Except for a period of two years (from 1941 to 1943) there has also been this difference between executions against real and personal property: that if lands were not sold, poundage rates were only one-half of what they would have been if there had been a sale; but in the case of personal property, no such reduction was or is made because of there not being any sale. (Acts of 1941, Ch. 314; Acts of 1943, Ch. 331). Thus, insofar as personal property is concerned, the early cases holding that the absence of a sale does not impair the sheriff's right to poundage are fully applicable. Among these cases are The Cape Sable Company's Case and Gurley v. Lee, both cited above. There is thus no question of the amount of the poundage fees if they are payable at all; and the vital question on this phase of the case is, what constitutes execution of the writ? Before going further we may pause to observe that the term poundage is derived from the name of British units of weight or money and means a tax, commission, rate, etc. of so much per pound sterling or pound weight ( New Century Dictionary ) or the percentage of a sale allowed to a sheriff or other officer who is authorized to sell goods on execution or foreclosure of a lien ( Radin's Law Dictionary ) and thus does not connote an impounding. Whether or not an actual taking of possession of the defendant's property is essential to establish a sheriff's right to poundage fees accordingly depends upon other terms of the statute. If we go back to the provincial statute of 1763 (Ch. 18), we find that fees in the nature of poundage fees, though not so designated, were provided for the levying of execution, and Acts of the General Assembly of the State passed in 1777, 1778 and 1779 dealt with the subject. Chapter 25 of the Acts of (November) 1779 provided for the fees to be charged by the sheriff for various services. It provided that his fees for attachments, replevins and fi. fas. should be the same as upon execution. Section 5 of this Act limited the poundage fees to be exacted upon executing a writ of capias ad satisfaciendum (execution against the person of the defendant) to the real amount of the debt. Section 6 made this limitation applicable to the service of any execution for money or tobacco and also fixed the rates for poundage fees. Maddox v. Cranch, 4 H & McH. 343; Howard v. The Levy Court, 1 H. & J. 558. Chapter 59, Section 2 of the Acts of 1790, changed somewhat the rates at which poundage fees were to be computed. No changes relating to poundage fees bearing upon the question here at issue appear to have been made between 1790 and the codification of the Public General Laws by the Code of 1860. Section 27 of Article 38 of that Code continued to provide for the same fees as on execution for all goods and chattels which any sheriff shall attach and take into his possession or wherewith he shall be chargeable. Section 28 of that Article provided that The Sheriff shall have as poundage for levying an execution the same rates as are still prescribed by Section 25 of Article 36 of the 1951 Code and also provided for lesser rates if the execution be laid on any interest in lands, just as in the present statute. The provisions of the 1860 Code were embodied without change in the Code of 1888 as Sections 28 and 29 of Article 36. Section 29 of Article 36 of the Code of 1888 remained unchanged until 1933. By Chapter 177 of the Acts of that year an amendment was made under which the sheriff of Baltimore City is to receive for his services in serving each writ of fieri facias a fee of $1.15 to be collected by the clerk of the court from the party ordering the issuance of the writ, and a like provision applicable to Baltimore County was made by Chapter 456 of the Acts of 1939. Chapter 314 of the Acts of 1941 amended the statute by adding a provision that if the execution is laid upon personal property and the same be not sold by the sheriff, he shall charge only one-half of the poundage fees aforesaid. This amendment was repealed by Chapter 331 of the Acts of 1943, which restored the 3% rate, even though the personal property levied upon was not sold by the sheriff. Chapter 331 of the Acts of 1943 also amended the poundage statute by inserting a clause specifying that poundage fees are to be computed upon the value of the personal property or the amount of the debt whichever is less. The limitation based upon the value of the property was new; that based upon the amount of the debt in effect restored a similar limitation which had been contained in Chapter 25, Sections 5 and 6 of the Acts of (November) 1779, but which seems to have been lost at the time of the 1860 codification. In Beatty v. Chapline, 2 H. &. J. 7, decided in 1806, this Court said (at page 9): There are four essential acts necessary to be done to perfect the execution of a fieri facias, in order to divest the property of personal chattels out of the defendant, and to transfer them to another. 1. Seizure of the goods by the sheriff. 2. The appraisement. 3. Public notice of the sale. 4. The sale of the goods by the sheriff after public notice. The amendments of the statute in 1941 and 1943 dealing with the effect of no sale being made emphasize that the law is today what it was held to be long before the 1941 amendment  that a sale of personal property is not necessary in order to establish the sheriff's right to poundage fees in full. We may also assume for purposes of this case that the absence of an appraisement and of a notice of sale constitutes no bar to his claim; but the requirement for a seizure of goods still remains. We do not understand that the Sheriff controverts this view. His contention is that the Sheriff made sufficient `levy of execution' to bring him within the provisions of the statute, because the service of the writ and the presence of the Sheriff ready to take possession of the Appellant's chattels were the coercing factors which brought about a satisfaction of the judgment. The Sheriff relies upon Gimenez v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 275 N.Y.S. 948, 224 App. Div. 485. There the sheriff had a writ in hand issued at the plaintiff's direction based upon a judgment which had been affirmed by the Court of Appeals of New York. The sheriff's counsel told the plaintiff's counsel that an actual levy seemed unnecessary and then communicated with the defendant's counsel with a view to effecting collection without harassing the defendant by closing its stores. The defendant's counsel at first said the judgment would be paid in the course of a few days, but when informed that this would not be satisfactory he asked that levy be withheld until 11 a.m. the next day, stating that the judgment would be paid in full, and that the sheriff's fees would be satisfied. Levy was withheld in accordance with this agreement. The New York statute entitled the sheriff to poundage for collecting money by virtue of an execution. The Appellate Division laid stress upon the language of the statute by virtue of an execution and affirmed an order denying the defendant's motion for a refund of poundage fees which it had paid under protest. The Court based its ruling upon two grounds: (1) the agreement; and (2) the further basis that the right to poundage has long been recognized in the practice under such circumstances. In the instant case, our statute allows poundage fees for levying an execution, not for collecting money by virtue of an execution, as does the statute involved in the Gimenez case. In the next place, in the instant case, there was no such agreement to pay poundage fees as there was in the Gimenez case, and finally there is no showing of any such practice in this State as the Court found there was in New York. The Gimenez case, therefore, does not seem to us to be applicable to the present case. Maryland authority, we think, supports the view that the term levying an execution as used in our statute contemplates an actual seizure. See Beatty v. Chapline, above cited, and the following cases: Byer v. Etnyre, 2 Gill. 150, in which this Court said that by common use and acceptation, the term `levied' when thus used by constables, imports a seizure [] ; Textor v. Shipley, 86 Md. 424, 38 A. 932; Jarboe v. Hall, 37 Md. 345; and Waters v. Duvall, 11 G. & J. 37. See also Poe, Pleading and Practice, Vol. 2, Tiffany's Ed., 1925, Sec. 668, and a comprehensive article on  Execution and Fi. Fa. in the People's Court of Baltimore City  by Chief Judge Rhynhart of that Court in 14 Md. Law Review 203, at 212. The language of Code (1951) Article 36, Section 25, relating to fees for serving each writ of Fieri Facias in Baltimore City or Baltimore County seems to recognize a clear distinction between the act of serving the writ and the act of levying an execution for which poundage fees are allowed. The ancient language of Section 24 of the same Article which is derived from Chapter 25 of the Acts of 1779 and which gives to the sheriff the same fees as on executions for all goods and chattels which he shall attach and take into his possession or wherewith he shall be chargeable strongly reinforces the view that an actual seizure is required as the basis for poundage fees on any form of execution. Though a sheriff might be chargeable for neglect for failing to execute a writ promptly, we do not suppose that it would be contended that he would be chargeable for goods of which he never took possession. The case in this Court which seems to come closer than any other to supporting the Sheriff's position is Horsey v. Knowles, 74 Md. 602, 22 A. 1104, where a general discussion of what constitutes a valid levy will be found. In that discussion, after noting that there was some diversity of opinion as to what constituted a valid levy on personal property, the Court said: But all the cases seem to agree in holding that it is not sufficient that the officer merely makes an inventory of the property, and indorses the levy upon his writ, without the presence or view of the property. He must have the property in view, and where he can exercise control over it;    and especially is this required where, by the law, it is made his duty to appraise the property, in order to avoid an excessive seizure, or to assure himself of the sufficiency of the levy to satisfy the execution. It is said to be sufficient that after having the property within his view, and where he can control it, he does profess to levy upon and to assume control of the property by virtue of the execution, and with the avowed purpose of holding the property to answer the exigencies of the writ. There is nothing in the present case to show that the deputy sheriff professed to make any levy upon, or to assume control of, any property with the avowed purpose of holding it to answer the exigencies of the writ. On the contrary, the facts, as we understand them, indicate that he threatened to take such action, but that he actually refrained from doing so. We conclude that a seizure was necessary in order to entitle the Sheriff to poundage fees and that the facts alleged show that there was not a seizure.