Hall v. Griffin

• Decision Date: 15 August 1898
• Citation: 119 Ala. 214,24 So. 27
• Parties: HALL ET AL. v. GRIFFIN.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

24 So. 27

119 Ala. 214

HALL ET AL. v. GRIFFIN.

Supreme Court of Alabama

August 15, 1898

Appeal from chancery court, Pike county; Jere N. Williams Chancellor.

Suit by G. A. Griffin against J. L. Hall and L. B. Farley, trustees to have enjoined the collection and enforcement of a judgment obtained by Hall and Farley, trustees, against complainant in an action of ejectment. The appeal is prosecuted from a decree overruling a motion made by the defendants to dismiss the bill for the want of equity, and the rendition of this decree is here assigned as error. Reversed.

Robert L. Harmon, for appellants.

M. N Carlisle, for appellee.

HEAD J.

Hall and Farley, trustees, recovered a judgment against appellee Griffin, in a real action, at the fall term of the circuit court of Pike county, for the land sued for and damages for the detention. Hall and Farley claimed title by purchase at sheriff's sale under judgment and execution against one Foreman. They introduced the judgment against Foreman rendered on November 2, 1893, the sheriff's deed dated October 21, 1895, and three several executions issued upon said judgment. There was a lapse of an entire term between the issuance of the second and third executions, the third being the one under which the sheriff sold. The defendant in the action, Griffin, claimed under a deed executed to him by said Foreman on March 6, 1893. This deed was never recorded, and there is no averment that Hall and Farley, or either of them (who were plaintiffs in the judgment, as well as purchasers at the sheriff's sale thereunder), had any notice of it, actual or constructive, at the time of the recovery of the judgment. They received notice, however, before the issuance of the execution under which the land was sold. On the trial of the real action, when plaintiffs introduced the first and second executions, defendant objected because of the chasm in the execution lien above stated. This bill is filed for relief against said recovery at law. For an equity justifying such relief the bill makes the following allegation: When the objection to the introduction of said executions was made, "the counsel for the plaintiff in the ejectment suit offered in evidence an execution in another case of Hall & Farley v. Foreman, issued from the same court, which supplied the missing link, as claimed by said counsel. Complainant avers that he and his counsel were both surprised by the offering of this execution, and verily believed at the time that it was a valid execution, and had the effect to give a lien under said executions, beginning on the 13th day of December, 1893, whereupon complainant's counsel withdrew his objection to said first two executions, and made no further resistance to the introduction of said two executions, or the lien set up by said Hall & Farley; and complainant avers that by the introduction of said execution, which was claimed to supply the missing link in...