Duckett v. Dalrymple
Duckett v. Dalrymple
Opinion of the Court
Curia, per
In Porteous vs. Snipes, 1 Bay, 220, it is said, as settled law, that upon a dissolution of an injunction in Chancery, the plaintiff in execution has the right to pursue his remedy on the judgment or to resort to the injunction bond.
In Gibbes vs. Mitchell, 2 Bay, 122, the language is still stronger. In that case the .Judges say. “With respect to the operation of the injunction out of Chancery, it did not alter or vary the right of the plaintiff in the least, for the moment it was dissolved, it left the cause exactly in the same situation where it found it.” If this be true, and I do not doubt its correctness, it is difficult to conceive how the junior executions can claim the proceeds of a sale made after the defendant in execution consented to dissolve his injunction, and the court at a subsequent period made the order of dissolution. It seems that, anciently, the Courts of law did not notice injunctions in Equity. In later times the rivalry between law and equity has ceased to exist, and the courts of law, when necessary, take notice of injunctions. In doing so, and allowing them to have full effect, care has been taken to prevent the party enjoined from sustaining injury. “It has been determined,” says Eden (in his work on Injunctions, 93,) “contrary to former cases, that where a plaintiff has been restrained by injunction for a year, from taking out execution, he may do so without scire facias.” The same principle is affirmed in Gibbes vs. Mitchell, and in that case the court held that as the sheriff had levied before injunction, that he had the right, the moment it was dissolved, to sell under the levy, although he might, in the mean time, have gone out of office. These authorities so fortify the right of the plaintiffs in the older executions to be remitted, on the dissolu
The reasoning of my brother (Chancellor Harper) on which his opinion is based, is against the mischief of a dormant lien, and that it ought not to be allowed to prevail so as to either defeat or delay junior executions, or deprive a defendant in execution of the benefit of his injunction, by making it necessary for the sheriff to sell enough to pay the senior as well as the junior executions. To this reasoning formerly I yielded my assent, and now most cheerfully acquiesce in its truth. But it will be observed, that it supposes a state of facts which is not found here. The consent of the defendant in execution to abandon his injunction shews that he will be deprived of no advantage ; the sheriff, too, after he has notice of it, is not selling a dollar more of the defendant’s property than the exigency of the executions in his hands demands ; neither are the junior executions delayed a day. The reason why a junior execution may be enforced while an older is suspended ip
But if there was any difficulty in ■ maintaining the proposition, that the consent to dissolve the injunction was a withdrawal of it, still I think, when the consent is connected with the subsequent dissolution of the injunction, that, all difficulty ceases. As soon as the injunction is dissolved it unfetters the plaintiffs, and they have the right to say, here are our executions, as to which you were informed before you made a sale of the defendant’s property, that he consented to dissolve the injunction, and the court has .assented that his consent should have effect, and have accordingly dissolved it.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.