Court Opinion

ID: 9809924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:33:28.94622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:10.613936
License: Public Domain

Seawell, J.,
dissenting: The order of sale in this case attempts to confer on the sheriff, a ministerial officer, the judicial function, since it makes him the judge of what property was used “by Bill Humphrey” in conducting the nuisance complained of. Such a power is not only dangerous to the public, but its delegation has been universally condemned as unconstitutional. 16 C. J., 505; Strickland v. Cox, 102 N. C., 411, 9 S. E., 414. It makes no difference that it is in the words of the statute. That is a charter for the court and jury, not the sheriff.
Even the Legislature cannot confer on a ministerial executive officer such incompatible powers. Constitution of North Carolina, Article I, section 8; 11 Am. Jur., p. 909, section 207.
The order, or execution, has no more validity than an execution in an action of detinue, which requires the sheriff to take from the defendant and deliver to the plaintiff “the property which belongs to him.” The order directed to the sheriff is void and the proposed action thereunder is utterly without authority; Barham v. Perry, 205 N. C., 428, 171 S. E., 614; and subject to restraint by injunction. Daniels v. Homer, 139 N. C., 219. 248 S. E.. 237.
*534In the main opinion it is said that the plaintiff has neither alleged nor contended that the execution is void. In this case the order of execution is embodied in the judgment, and that part which relates to the sale of the property by the sheriff is the part around which the controversy hinges, and the objection, as stated in plaintiff’s brief, is that the order leaves to the personal judgment of the sheriff “what might or might not have been used in the way of movable property in the conduct of the nuisance.”
No doubt the defendant, in the vernacular, “got what was coming to him.” But the precedent might be used to defeat justice in a more meritorious cause.
Stacy, C. J., and WiNBORNE, J., concur in dissent.