Weston v. Clark

• Decision Date: 31 March 1866
• Parties: JUSTIN F. WESTON, Respondent, v. WILLIAM CLARK, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

37 Mo. 568

JUSTIN F. WESTON, Respondent,

v.WILLIAM CLARK, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1866.

Appeal from St. Louis Land Court.

Krum. Decker & Krum, for appellant.

I. The plaintiff having given in evidence the judgment and execution in the case of James A. Monks v. Isaac T. Green and Franklin Weston, and also the sheriff's deed dated February 8, 1860, to the defendant, it was not competent for the plaintiff to give evidence tending to prove that said judgment had been satisfied before the sheriff's sale of the property in question to the defendant. The evidence shows that Weston paid some money, and gave his, or rather the note of Weston & Son, to defendant; but it does not appear that the defendant agreed to accept said note in satisfaction of said judgment-- Appleton v. Kennon, 19 Mo. 637.

II. The abstract book of judgments, required to be kept by the clerk of the Land Court, is not a record. He simply makes entries of abstracts sent to him by the different clerks of other courts of record--§ 13, Land Ct. Act, R. C. 1855, p. 1594; Sess. Act 1860-1, p. 510. The mode of entering satisfaction of a judgment is provided by statute--R. C. 1855, pp. 905-6, §§ 21, 23, 24. Nothing will amount to the satisfaction of a judgment but an order entered in the court in which it was rendered, or an entry on the margin of the record, witnessed by the clerk.

T. T. Gantt, for respondent.

The paper executed by the sheriff has no validity unless it be made in execution of a statutory power. The evidence of a judgment by a court of competent jurisdiction, still subsisting and unsatisfied, lies at the foundation of this power. If the debt has been paid, if the judgment has been satisfied, he has no pretense of power to sell. In the case at bar, the party issuing the writ, purchasing at the sheriff's sale, and taking the deed to himself, was the same person who had declared of record on the 24th of September, 1859 that the judgment had been satisfied in full--Austin's heirs v. Reed, 9 Mo. 713; Jackson v. Anderson, 4 Wend. 474.

HOLMES, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

Both parties claim title under the same person, from whom the possession is admitted to have been derived.

The plaintiff claims under a sheriff's sale and deed under an older judgment, the lien of which had expired, by virtue of an execution, levied within five years from the date of the judgment. The defendant claims by virtue of a prior sheriff's sale and deed, under an execution issued upon a junior judgment, which was a lien unless the same had been extinguished by satisfaction prior to the issuing of the execution. The plaintiff put in evidence his own title papers, and also the judgment, assignment thereof, execution and sheriff's deed, under which the defendant claimed; and then, for the purpose of proving satisfaction of this junior judgment, prior to the issuing of the execution thereon, showed a receipt of the assignee and owner of the judgment as follows: “Received, St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 24, 1859, of F. Weston & Son, three hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and a note payable sixty days after the above date, for the sum of three hundred and thirty-five dollars and forty cents, being for a judgment assigned to me by Mr. Monks, for the amount of six hundred and forty-four dollars and fifty cents;” and also an extract from the abstract of judgments kept by the clerk of the St. Louis Land Court, showing an entry of the same date as the receipt in the blank column ruled for such entries, and opposite the name of one of the two defendants therein, in these words: “As assignee of this judgment, I acknowledge full satisfaction of the same,” written by the clerk and signed by the assignee. A witness proved that the assignee signed the receipt, and then went with him to the clerk's office and there executed the above acknowledgment of satisfaction; that the judgment debtor who made the payment, being merely surety for the other, wishing to sell land of his own, and finding the lien of this judgment in his way, paid the amount, and caused the entry of satisfaction to be made for the consideration named in the receipt; and that the amount of the note when due had been tendered to the defendant, who refused to receive it. He also proved that the defendant entered into possession of the land sued for, after the date of his deed from the sheriff, and had continued in possession ever since. The defendant objected to all this proof of payment, on the ground that the plaintiff had no right to invalidate thus the sheriff's deed to the defendant, after having himself given it in evidence. He also gave some testimony tending to show, that the defendant, in receiving payment and acknowledging satisfaction, intended to release the party only who made the payment, and not the other.

The material questions presented by the instructions, are, first, whether this evidence of payment should have been excluded when offered; and, second, if not, whether it amounted to such proof of satisfaction as to extinguish the judgment and render all the subsequent proceedings void.

As to the first question, we do not see any ground on which the objection can rest. There was perhaps no necessity that the plaintiff should have introduced these documents at that time, but there was no impropriety in his doing so, for the purpose of showing by virtue of what claim of title or right the defendant had entered into possession, or how he had been put in possession and that his possession was derived from the common ancestor and under his sheriff's deed. The judgment was admissible to show the character of...