United States v. Morrison

Mr Chief Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court.

The single .question in this case is, whether the United States, or certain other creditors of the defendant, John Morrison, have the prior lien on lands of the said Morrison which have been conveyed to those creditors.

In October 1819, the United States obtained a judgment against John Morrison in the district court of Virginia, on *136 which a fieri facias issued. The goods taken in execution were restored to the debtor according to the law of Virginia, and a bond taken with a condition to have them forthcoming on the day and place of sale. This bond being forfeited, an execution was awarded thereon by the judgment of the district court, on the 2d of April 1822. A fieri facias was issued on the second judgment, the return on which was, that the costs were made, and all further proceedings suspended by order of thé agent of the treasury department. The conveyances under which the defendants claim were dated in February and March 1823. The United States contend that the judgment of April 1822 created a lien ori these lands which overreaches these conveyances.

There is no statute in Virginia which, in express terms, makes a judgment a lien upon the lands of the debtor. As in England, the lien.is the consequence of a right to take out an elegit. During the existence of this right, the lien is universally acknowledged. Different opinions seem at different times to have been entertained of the effect of any suspension of the right.

The statute concerning executions enacts, that “ all persons who have recovéred or shall hereafter recover any debt, damages or costs in any court of record, may at their election prosecute writs of fieri facias, elegit, and capias ad satisfaciendum within the year, for ■ taking the goods, lands and body of thé debtor.” The third section provides that when any writ of execution shall issue, and the party at whose suit the same is issued shall afterwards desire to take out another writ of execution at his own proper costs and charges, the clerk may issue the same, if the first be not returned and executed; and where upon a capias ad satisfaciendum, the sheriff shall return that the defendant is not found, the clerk may issue a fieri facias, and he shall return that the party hath no goods, or that only part of the debt is levied, in such case it shall be lawful to issue a capias ad satisfaciendum on the same judgment; and where part of a debt shall be levied upon an elegit, a new elegit shall issue for the residue; and where nihil shall be retuthed upon any writ of elegit, a capias ad satisfaciendnm or fieri facias may issue, arid so vice versa.

*137 By the construction put by the circuit court on this section, the party who' had sued out a fieri facias could not resort to an elegit, until the remedy on the fieri facias was shown by the return to be exhausted. The United States had sued out a fieri facias orí the judgment of April 1822,'and the remedy on that^writ was not exhausted in February and'March 1823, when .the deeds of trust under which the defendants’ claim were executed. In the opinion of that court, the United States could-not, at the date of those deeds, have sued out an elegit. As the lien is the mere consequence of the right to take out an elegit, that court was of opinion that it did not overreach a conveyance made when this right was suspended.

A case was soon afterwards decided imthe court of appeals, in which this question on the execution law of the state was elaborately argued and deliberately decided. That decision is; that the right to take out an elegit is not suspended by suing out a writ of fieri facias, and consequently, that the lien of the judgment continues pending the proceedings' on-that writ. This court, according to its uniform course, adopts that construction of the act which is made by the highest court of the state. The decree therefore is to be reversed and annulled, and the cause remanded to the circuit court, that its decree may be reformed, as is required by this opinion.

This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the circuit court of the United States for the fifth circuit, and district of East Virginia, and was argued by counsel; on consideration whereof, this court is of opinion, that the claim ofth.e United States to the lands conveyed by the deeds of February and March 1823, under the lien created by their judgment of April 1822, ought to have been sustained, and that so much of the decreg of the said circuit court as dismisses the original and-amended bill of the plaintiffs, so far as it claims to charge the-property conveyed by the deed of trust'of the 14th of February, in the year 1823, from John Morrison to James A. Lane and. William Ward, and by the deed of the 21st of February, in *138 the year 1823, from John Morrison to James W.

Ford, and by the deed of the 9th of March, in the year 1823, from the said Morrison to Inman Horner, is erroneous, and ought to be reversed. This court doth therefore reverse the said decree, as to so much thereof, and doth remand the cause to the court of the United States for the fifth circuit and district of Virginia, With directions to reform the said decree so far as it is hereby declared to be erroneous, and to affirm the lien of the United States on the lands in the said deed mentioned. All which is ordered and decreed accordingly.