Pearson v. Bradley

• Decision Date: 30 September 1868
• Parties: GUSTAVUS C. PEARSONv.CHARLES BRADLEY.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

48 Ill. 250

1868 WL 5092 (Ill.)

GUSTAVUS C. PEARSON

v.CHARLES BRADLEY.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

September Term, 1868.

WRIT OF ERROR to the Superior Court of Chicago. This was a bill in chancery, filed by the defendant in error, Charles Bradley, in the court below, against the plaintiff in error, Gustavus C. Pearson, and one McManus, to set aside a sheriff's sale of certain premises, of which the complainant claimed the ownership, upon the ground that the notice of such sale was not published for three full weeks from the first publication to the day of the sale, as alleged is required by the amendatory act of 1857. The question, whether this sale was valid, is the only one presented by the record.

Mr. M. W. FULLER, for the plaintiff in error.

Messrs. WAITE & CLARKE, for the defendant in error.

Mr. JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:

The question in this case is, whether a sheriff's sale is valid where the advertisement, in a weekly newspaper, was made on the fourth, eleventh and eighteenth days of the month, for a sale upon the twentieth, an assignee of the judgment being the purchaser. The statute of 1857, Scates' Comp. 606, requires that, in addition to the posted notices, the sheriff shall cause a notice “to be published for three successive weeks, once in each week, in a newspaper.” In the case at bar, three full weeks did not elapse between the date of the first insertion and the day of sale. Does the statute require this, or is it sufficient if there are three different insertions in as many weekly issues of the paper before the day of sale? It is manifest that the statute will bear either construction, and the best proof of this is the fact that, in the cases cited by the counsel of the respective parties, we find courts of high respectability differing on this question, in the construction of similar statutes. In Garrett v. Moss, 20 Ill. 554, where language like that of the statute was used in a chancery decree, and the advertisement was of the same character with the present, it was held sufficient, the court remarking, that “while the intention of the court may have been to require three full weeks from the first publication to the day of sale, it was not required in terms by the decree.” This decision was made immediately after the passage of the law under consideration, and what the court there said in regard to the requirements of a chancery decree, has probably been often applied, since, to the...