Johnson's Lessee v. Mills
Johnson's Lessee v. Mills
Opinion of the Court
This was an action of ejectment instituted in the Circuit Court for the county of Hawkins, and removed by a change of venue into the county of Greene. It was tried at August term, 1816. The plaintiff offered to read a deed of conveyance from Thomas Gillenwaters, sheriff of Hawkins County, to Johnston, dated the 20th December, 1813, which recited and purported to be founded on the returns, judgments, publications, &c., and sales for-the taxes and charges due on said lands. fIt was registered * in Hawkins, the 6th of December, 1814. This deed was objected to, because the plaintiff had not proved an execution or order of sale, or showed that any such order or execution ever issued as an authority to the sheriff to sell said land. The deed was rejected by the court for this cause; and now the question to be decided by the court is, whether by the true construction of 1803, ch. 2, § 13, and 1807, ch. 21, § 3, a fi. fa. be necessary or not. These acts are in pari materia, and to be taken together, except where one repeals part of the other, either expressly, or by substitution of a latter provision for a former. By the former act a fi. fa. is to issue ; the latter act directs the form of a judgment, differing from that mentioned in 1803, and introduces some additional provisions not found in the former act. It directs a different advertisement, o and it directs the sheriff to sell on the day advertised by the clerk; it fixes the day on which the sale shall be. Everything intended to be altered or added is mentioned. But as no alteration was intended to the fi. fa., nothing is said of it. Therefore that part of the former law remained as it was. Every judgment directs that the party for whom it is given shall have execution. Here it is a part of the judgment that the land shall be sold. If the sheriff can sell without a fi. fa. upon the authority of the judgment, then how is he to know if the judgment be set aside or reversed for some cause, or be suspended by a supersedeas; or, indeed, how is he to know that there is such a judgment? If he can sell without a fi. fa.,
See King’s Digest, 11,547-9.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Thomas Johnson's Lessee v. William Mills, William Simms, Thomas Lawson, and George Branch
- Status
- Published