Compton v. Sharpe

• Decision Date: 23 November 1911
• Citation: 56 So. 967,174 Ala. 149
• Parties: COMPTON v. SHARPE ET AL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

56 So. 967

174 Ala. 149

COMPTON v. SHARPE ET AL.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 23, 1911

Appeal from Law and Equity Court, Marengo County; Edward J. Gilder Judge.

Action by Laura E. Compton against A. Y. Sharpe and others. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

J. M Miller, for appellant.

B. F Elmore, Reese & Reese, and C. K. Abrahams, for appellees.

McCLELLAN J.

Statutory ejectment by appellant against appellee.

The history and results of other contests between these parties over related questions may be found in 138 Ala. 451, 35 So 415, and 148 Ala. 217, 42 So. 441. Under the view of the record that prevails on this appeal, the controlling question is whether the certification and registration in the probate office of the judgment of Sharpe and Son against R. L. Simmons rendered by the circuit court of Marengo county effected to establish a lien for the satisfaction of the judgment superior to any right acquired by Mrs. Compton in virtue of her mortgage from Simmons.

The judgment was rendered July 9, 1895. Executions were promptly issued to enforce its satisfaction. A certificate of the clerk formed according to provisions of the act approved February 23, 1899 (Acts 1898-99, p. 34), fixing the requirements for the registration of money judgments and decrees of courts of record, was filed in the probate office on July 17, 1899. The mortgage to Mrs. Compton was executed December 30, 1901. It was expressly ruled in Bland v. Putman, 132 Ala. 613, 32 So. 616, that the act of 1899, before mentioned, did not require that the registry should show who was the owner of the judgment or decree. The certificate and registry there pronounced valid and efficacious to impose the judgment as a lien from the date of its filing in the probate office was, in form, identical with that shown by this record. This ruling in construction of the act of 1899 in Bland v. Putman has not, so far as we have been able to discover, been doubted or departed from. The ruling in Greenwood v. Trigg, 143 Ala. 617, 39 So. 361, was under the Code of 1896, the certification considered being made in 1896, before the act of 1899. It was held in Simmons v. Sharpe, 148 Ala. 217, 42 So. 441, that the judgment in question was not void.

It is contended for appellant, upon the authority of Edinburgh American, etc., Co. v. Grant, 152 Ala. 456, 44 So. 554 that no lien for the satisfaction of a judgment was created if the certificate of the clerk of the court rendering the judgment was not recorded. Apart from any other considerations that might suggest themselves as demonstrating the inapplication of that ruling to the cause at bar, it will suffice to note that there the act involved was that of 1889 (Laws 1888-89, p. 60), in force previous to the Code of 1896, and, of course, previous to the act of 1899, amendatory to that codification. The certification and registration of the judgment against Simmons was effected under the act of 1899; and this act did not condition the imposition of the lien upon the recording in the probate office of the certificate of the clerk of the court rendering the judgment. Nor did any of the laws in force previous to the codification of 1896 or that codification relating to the registration of money judgments and decrees, hinge the creation or continued existence of the lien upon the issuance or any other act in respect of the execution. The lien,...