Court Opinion

ID: 9810327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:47:07.318724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:50.306690
License: Public Domain

*602Clark, J.,
concurring in result: If it was the judgment debtor who had been placed in the hands of a receiver, the latter might have applied for an order of the court restraining, in the interest of the fund he represents, the judgment creditor from enforcing his lien by sale, bu t even in such case the order is not a matter of right but rests in the discretion of the court. There are many authorities that the sale of real estate in such case under the lien of a prior judgment is lawful and is not a contempt of court (High on Receivers, Sec. 171; Bank v. Schermerhorn, 9 Paige, 372) and the purchaser acquires a valid title when the lien of the judgment is prior to the date of the appointment of the receiver. Beach on Receivers, Sec.- 200; Chatauqua Bank v. Risley, 19 N. Y., 369) because the receiver takes subject to all valid liens. Chicago &c. v. Smith, 158 Ill., 417. The rul§ is different as to personal property, because that is in the actual possession of the receiver and there is no lien acquired without a levy. Skinner v. Maxwell, 68 N C., 400.
But this case is far stronger in suppoi’t of his Honor’s action in refusing the restraining order. Here, the judgment debtor had executed a mortgage which this Court held at a late term (Langston v. Land Co., 120 N. C., 132) was subject to the prior lien of the judgment creditor. At the sale under that mortgage the Greenville Lumber Co. bought, subject of course to Langston’s judgment lien. The plaintiff herein instituted this proceeding to place such purchaser, the defendant herein, the said Greenville Lumber Co. in the hands of a receiver as insolvent, and in that proceeding to wind up the affairs and to distribute the assets of that company, in which Langston, the judgment creditor of the mortgagor has no interest or right to participate, and to which *603proceeding he is not a party but in every sense a stranger, being neither a stockholder in, nor creditor of such company; the notice is issued to him to show cause why he should not be restrained from proceeding to enforce the lien against' the land. The purchaser at the mortgage sale has no equity to stay him from collecting his judgtnent, having bought with notice thereof, and the receiver of such purchaser is in no better or stronger case. A case very much in point is Carlin v. Hudson, 12 Texas, 202, in which it was held that a restraining order would not be granted to the purchaser from a judgment debtor to restrain a sale under the prior judgment lien.
It would be a great hardship upon judgment creditors if they could be restrained from enforcing collection of a judgment and lien given them by the court, indefinitely, till the receivers of insolvent .purchasers, who buy subsequent to and with notice of the' judgment, shall at their leisure wind up and distribute the assets of such insolvents, in which assets a judgment creditor of the vendor has no interest. His lien is prior to that of the purchaser from the judgment debtor and he should not be hindered and delayed by such purchaser going 'into liquidation. Bostic v. Young, 116 N. C., 766.