Roberts v. Brown
Roberts v. Brown
Opinion of the Court
Opinion op-the Court by
Affirming.
Tbe appellees and plaintiffs below, Charlie Wood Brown and others, filed this action against the partnership of Abell & Hurst, composed of appellant G-eorge M. Abell and Len H. Hurst, to recover the balance due on a note for $5,000.00 executed by defendants to plaintiffs on June 30,1920, the amount unpaid being about one-half of the principal sum. At the same time -an attachment was ■sued out which the sheriff levied on the unexpired portion (about three years) of a leasehold interest held by defendants on about forty acres of land in Nelson county
Hurst made no answer in tbe case whatever, nor did Abell defend bis liability on tbe note, but only denied tbe grounds of attachment. A default judgment was entered for tbe unpaid balance of tbe note and, following that, tbe grounds of attachment were tried, as was also the issue raised by tbe intervening pleading, when tbe court dismissed tbe latter, sustained tbe attachment and ordered a sale by tbe sheriff of the unexpired time of tbe lease, from which orders Mrs. Roberts and defendant Abell prosecute tbis appeal.
It perhaps should be first stated that there was no averment in tbe pleading of Mrs. Roberts of any fraud or mistake in tbe draft of tbe lease, without wbicb nothing but its terms may be examined in disposing of tbe isgpe presented by ber pleading. It is therefore contended that tbe lease itself sustains ber interpretation thereof, and that contention is based upon a clause therein saying: “That first party (Mrs. Roberts) has leased to second party (George M. Abell and bis associates) and to tbe successors in partnership with second party, George M. Abell,” and also upon a statement contained in tbe last
The excerpt from the last clause in the lease rather fortifies our construction above than to support counsel’s interpretation. There is an express provision therein for the termination of the lease, but it is confined only to the event of the death of George M. Abell, and if it had been the intention to also provide for its termination upon his retirement as lessee before his death, it would have been easy to have said so, and no place in the lease could be found more appropriate for that purpose. Furthermore, in that same provision, it is said that the lease might expire ‘ ‘ at the ■ option of the survivors of this partnership,” which necessarily means the lessee partnership and left it optional with them as to whether the lease should then expire, even upon his death. We, therefore, conclude that the court properly dismissed the intervening petition of Mrs. Roberts.
It is next insisted (a), (and which may only be made in the proper manner, by Abell, the defendant lessee) that the sheriff did not properly levy the attachment on. the unexpired leasehold interest, and (b), that the order of the court directing its sale by the sheriff under the attachment did not fix the amount of the debt to be paid with the proceeds of the sale. We are not altogether clear as to whether either of those contentions can be made by Abell on this appeal, since no sale has yet been made and probably the appropriate time and place to' raise those questions would be upon exceptions to the
In support of contention (b), we are cited to a number of cases defining the requisite certainty of judgments and orders directing the sale of property, in which it is held as a general proposition that the directions to such officer should be contained in the judgment, and not left to be obtained by him from other parts of the record. We fully agree with that principle of the law relating to judgments, but we do not regard it as applicable to the facts of this case. The purpose of its promulgation was to make it obligatory upon the court in its judgment to fix and determine the facts by which the officer should be guided in making the sale and not leave the determination to be made by the officer from other papers in the cause. In other words, when the record contains an adjudication of those facts, they need not be repeated in the order directing the sale, though rendered later in the progress of the cause. The sheriff, therefore, in this case could and should look to the default judgment in order to obtain the amount of money to be raised by the sale of the property which he was ordered to make, and in conformity to the provisions of section 696 of the Civil Code of Practice, he should insert that amount in his advertisements of the sale.
We, therefore, conclude that no error was committed in rendering the judgment appealed from, and it is therefore affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.