Court Opinion

ID: 9812737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:46:43.134184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:16.197826
License: Public Domain

OlarK, J.
(dissenting): The plaintiff claims under a deed from the Sheriff upon execution sale against T. J. Withrow dated December 8,1888, and registered December 11, 1888. The execution issued on two docketed judgments against him, one of them taken at Spring Term, 1885, and docketed. His homestead was laid off in other property, and this tract was returned as his property in excess September, 1888. The feme defendant claims under an alleged deed from her husband dated August 2,1882, but not registered till November 26,1889, nearly a year after the registration of the plaintiff’s deed.
By Section 1245 of The Code, which is a copy of the law in force at the date of the deed to the feme defendant, such deed was not “good and available unless registered within two years after the date of said deed.” It was not so registered and was therefore, like an unregistered mortgage, a nullity as -to executions or liens against the grantor unless the two years’ limitation was extended. No statute of extension has since been passed, unless the second proviso of Section 1, Ch. 147, Act 1885, be so construed. But it is unnecessary to construe it, for, granting it bearg that construction, by its terms it only took, effect December 1, 1885, and in the meantime, at the Spring of 1885, the lien of the judgment docketed against T. J. Withrow at a time when the alleged unregistered deed to his wife was a nullity (it being then more than two years “after date of said deed” in August, 1882) became a vested, right which could not be divested by an Act taking effect thereafter on December 1, 1885. The sale under execution issuing on said judgment, *780and deed thereunder to plaintiff dated back to the Spring of 1885, and the plaintiff acquired a good title. This is stated in the dissenting opinion of the two dissenting Judges in this case, 112 N. C., on page 743, and the opinion of the other three Judges, delivered by the then Chief' Justice, in its concluding paragraph on page 739 impliedly concedes the proposition, but avoids it on the ground that the point was not made and no exception taken on the trial. This time the point was made and ruled in accordance with the intimation of the Court and the defendant excepted and appealed. Fraud was alleged, but His Honor excluded the proof offered to sustain the charge, as unnecessary, on the ground that the above principles entitled the plaintiff to recover, without going into the evidence of fraud.
The Act of 1885, Cb. 147, by its terms did not take effect till December 1, 1885. One of its provisions is the repeal of section 1245 of The Gode. The plaintiff does not contend that the repeal of this section took place prior to December 1, 1885, when the rest of the act took effect. On the contrary he insists that section 1245 remained in full force till that date. By its terms the deed of T. J. With-row was void and of no effect because not registered “ within two years after the date of the deed,” which was August 2, 1882. The deed being null and void as to the creditors of the grantor after August 2, 1884, just as an unregistered mortgage would have been, the judgment docketed against T. • J. Withrow, Spring Term, 1885, conferred a vested right in the land which could not be disturbed by an act taking effect December 1, 1885. Such act might revive the rights of the holder of an unregistered deed, but it could not destroy liens acquired under the docketed judgment while the unregistered deed was null and void by the terms of'the law then in force. It must be noted that The Gode, Sec. 1245, did not extend the time for *781the registration of deeds for two years from its ratification, wbieb previous legislatures bad been in the custom of doing as seems to be supposed, but simply kept in force the former act that deeds should not be “ good and available ” unless registered in two years “ after date of the deed.” The date of the deed being August 2, 1882, it ceased to be “good and available ” August 2,1884. If revived, it could only be by virtue of the act taking effect December 1, 1885, for Section 1245 was the law up to that date. Now, in the interval, 'while the deed was a nullity as to the creditors of the grantor, just as an unregistered mortgage would have been, the lien of the docketed judgment was acquired at the Spring Term, 1885. The plaintiff, as purchaser under execution issued on that docketed judgment, gets a vested interest, thereby acquired, free from any subsequent rights or liens of the unregistered deed of the grantee, however conferred, by statute or otherwise. This is the office and purpose of docketing judgments. Otherwise, they would be ofsmall use. The plaintiff having acquired by purchase under execution issued thereon, the vested right and lien on the property conferred by such docketed judgment antedates any rights which could be conferred on the holder of the unregistered deed by the act, which did not take effect till December 1, 1885. Whatever the intent of the legislature may be supposed to have been, it had not the power, nor can it be supposed to have intended, to destroy vested interests in the land acquired by the lien of the docketed judgment before the act became operative. So in McKeithan v. Terry, 64 N. C., 25, it was held that the lien acquired by a levy in 1867 could not be divested by the homestead provision of the Constitution adopted in 1868. Such transactions as the one here attempted to be set up are the strongest example and vindication of the wisdom and necessity of the Act of 1885, supra. The husband in possession of land under a regis*782tered deed continues to receive the rents and profits and to list and pay taxes on it in his own name. When his homestead is set apart, this is laid off as his excess, without exception. When the excess is offered for sale, then for tlje first time it is contended that the wife claimed that a deed had been made to her seven years before. When the plaintiff offers to show fraud and to rebut the evidence that the notice was even then given — the deed in fact not being recorded till a year later — His Honor excluded it (and properly) as unnecessary on the grounds above stated that the lien of the docketed judgment was not divested by the subsequent act of the legislature.
MONTGOMERY, J., concurs in this dissent.