Merchants Bank of Missouri v. Evans

• Citation: 51 Mo. 335
• Parties: THE MERCHANTS BANK OF MISSOURI and EMMA PLAYER, Defendants in Errors v. BYRD EVANS, et al., Plaintiffs in Error.
• Decision Date: 31 January 1873
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

51 Mo. 335

THE MERCHANTS BANK OF MISSOURI and EMMA PLAYER, Defendants in Errors

v.BYRD EVANS, et al., Plaintiffs in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January Term, 1873.

Error to Gasconade Circuit Court.

Charles Jones, for Plaintiffs in Error.

The United States Circuit Court has always had the right by the various acts of Congress from 1798 to the present time, to prescribe rules for its action, and to authorize the sale of real estate at a Circuit Court or County Court, and the rules of the court, clearly show it. Such has always been and is now the rule, and sales are constantly made at terms of County Courts. These rules have been recognized, and sanctioned by the United States Circuit Court, and by the Supreme Court of the United States, and are the law.

The courts of the United States, may by their rules not only alter the forms, but the effect and operation of the process whether mesne or final, and the modes of proceeding under it. (Beers vs. Haughton, 9 Pet., 329; 7 Pet., 360, 361; Way man vs. Southard, 10 Wheat., 1; Bank of United States vs. Halstead, 10 Wheat., 51; Pomroy vs. Manin, 2 Paine, 476; Catherwood vs. Gapete, 2 Curtis, C. C., 94; Beers vs. Haughton, 1 McLean, 226; Ross vs. Duval, 13 Pet., 45; 4 U. S. Stat. at Large, 4, 279; Kenerl vs. Shepley, 15 Mo., 640; Brightley's Digest, 792, 793, et seq.)

E. P. McCarthy, for Plaintiffs in Error.

I. The Circuit Court of Gasconade or Franklin County, has no power to review and vacate the process, orders and imstruments of the Federal Court.

The act of the Marshal in making the deed is the act of the court. “State Courts are exempt from all interference by the Federal Tribunals, but they are destitute of all power to restrain either the process or proceedings in the National Courts. Circuit Courts and State Courts act separately, and independently of each other, and, in their respective spheres of action, the process issued by one is as far beyond the reach of the other as if the line of demarkation between them, was traced by land marks and monuments visible to the eye.”

Riggs vs. Johnson County, 6 Wall., 195-6.

State Courts have no power to restrain or prevent the execution of any process of the Federal Courts, on any grounds whatever.

And even where the process is attachment, and levied on property of third parties not defendants in the writ and in no wise connected with the suit, the State Court cannot interfere.

Freeman vs. Howe, (24 How., 457 and cases cited.)

II But even if the Circuit Court had the power or jurisdiction to review these proceedings in a proper case, the Circuit Court erred in granting a decree in the case vacating the Marshal's deed. The sole question was upon the sale being at a term of County and not Circuit Court, it being conceded under the evidence, that the allegation of payment is out of the case.

And upon this only remaining point against the deed, plaintiff's proof is simply the deed itself. If the deed is void at all under the evidence in this case, it is void upon its face.

It recites that the sale was made during the sitting of a stated term of a County Court. There is no evidence in this case that that sale was made at the County Court sitting, &c., except the return of the Marshal to the execution, and that is recited in the deed. If therefore, this objection to the Marshal's sale is well taken, this case falls within the settled rule of cases in which Equity will not interfere. (Janney vs. Spedden, et al., 38 Mo., 401; Ewing vs. City of St. Louis, 5 Wall., 418; 2 Sto. Eq. Jur., § 700, and cases cited in note; Peirsoll, et al. vs. Elliott, 6 Pet., 95.)

III. Plaintiffs action was barred by the statute of limitations, which was pleaded by defendants.

Hitchcock, Lubke and Player, for Defendants in Error.

The sale by the U. S. Marshal was made at a term of the County Court of Franklin County, and not at a term of the Circuit Court, and for that reason was illegal, irregular and void; and the deed made thereunder and which is now sought to be set aside, is void and passed no title.

Under the act of Congress passed May 8th, 1792, (1 U. S. Stat. at Large, p. 276 § 2.) the U. S. Courts had the power to make any regulations they saw fit in regard to final process by rule. This law of 1792 remained in force until May 19th, 1828 when Congress passed “an act further to regulate process in the Courts of the United States.” (4 Stat. at Large p. 281 § 3) by which it was provided, “That writs of execution and other final process issued on judgments and decrees rendered in any Courts of the United States, and the proceedings thereupon, shall be the same, except their style, as are now (1828) used in the Courts of such States, saving to the Courts of the United States in those States in which there are not Courts of Equity, with the ordinary Equity jurisdiction the power of prescribing the modes of executing their decrees in equity by rules of Court. Provided, however, that it shall be in the power of the Courts if they see fit in their discretion, by rules of Court, so far to alter final process in said Courts, as to conform the same to any change which may be adopted by the Legislatures of the respective States for the State Courts.”

This last is the act which has uninterruptedly, from 1828 to the present time, regulated executions issuing from the Federal Courts and the proceedings thereupon.

In order to ascertain, then, what writs of execution and other final process issued on judgments at law in the United States Courts, and the proceedings thereon should be in any state at any given time since May 19th 1828, we must first see what they were in said states on the 19th of May, 1828. 2nd. Whether between that day and the day in question, any change in these respects had been adopted by the State Legislature for the State Courts. 3rd. Whether the United States Courts of that State had seen fit by their rules, to conform their final process to the changes made for the State Courts. (Conk. Treat., 3 Ed., pp. 317, 341, 460; Beers vs. Haughton, 9 Pet., 361, 362; Ross vs. Duval, 13 Pet., 45; The United States vs. Knight, 14 Pet., 301; Amis vs. Smith, 16 Pet., 312; Duncan vs. Darst, 1 How., 309, 310; McCracken vs. Hayward, 2 How., 608; Riggs vs. Johnson County, 6 Wall., 190; Smith vs. Cockrill, 6 Wall., 756; Evans vs. Riehl, 10 Mo., 433,)

The cases of Kenerl vs. Shepley, 15 Mo., 640, and Keene vs. Barnes, 29 Mo., 378, can have no application to the case at bar, because the Marshal's sales therein considered, were made long prior to 1828, and under the earlier laws of Congress which were essentially different from the law of 1828. The same remark applies to the cases of Wayman vs. Southard, and Bank vs. Halstead, 10 Wheat., 1 and 51.

The judgments under which the United States Marshal made the sale in question to Evans, were judgments rendered in common law suits.

At the time when the law of 1828 went into effect the laws of Missouri required, that “When any lands and tenements shall be taken in execution by any sheriff or other officer, it shall be his duty to expose the same to sale at the Court House door, on some day during the term of the Circuit Court of the county wherein they are situated.”

This provision concerning the sale of lands under execution has remained a part of the law of this State from 1825 to the present day, and it is no empty quibble to require that the U. S. Marshals should make the time and place of these sales under execution correspond with ose prescribed by the State laws.

The people know that sheriffs' sales generally take place at the Court House, during the session of the Circuit Court, and they go there at that time for the purpose of seeing what property is to be sold, and to make purchases. Again, they look for the advertisements and notices of sale, when the sales are to take place at the Court House in term time, because they are expected, when a sale at another time in a different town before an inferior tribunal, would escape the observation of all except those who are especially interested. (Mers. vs. Bell 45 Mo. 335.)

This Court has jurisdiction to declare null and void the deed of the Marshal in question.

Much stress seems to be placed by the plaintiffs in error, upon the fact that the deed recites that it was made under anthority of an order of Court. This order was simply an authority given by the Court to the Marshal to execute a deed for land sold by his predecessor, and the only thing neceessary to obtain it was that the purchaser at Marshal's sale should satisfy the Court that he had paid the money bid. It was made without notice to any one, and was simply one of those formal orders of Court, provided for in our execution laws in cases where a sheriff has died after sale and before making a deed. It is provided simply because the new sheriff cannot know what was done during the life-time of his predecessor. A deed made under such order, has no other or greater force or authority, than one made without such order by the sheriff or marshal who made the sale.

The acts of the Uuited States Marshal in selling under execution, are simply ministerial, and the State Courts have a right to set aside void deeds made by him. And the order of Court makes no difference.

ADAMS, Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court.

This was an action in the nature of a bill in equity, commenced in 1864 in the Circuit Court of Franklin County and taken by a change of venue on the application of defendants to the Gasconade Circuit Court.

The petition, in substance, alleges that the plaintiffs are owners in fee of certain lands in Franklin County which are described in the petition.

The petition sets forth the title under which plaintiffs claim, by which it appears that these lands originally belonged to various parties trading under the firm name of the “Missouri Mining and Smelting Association”--that one Brown obtained a judgment against said parties in the Franklin County Circuit Court, under which he caused the...