Anderson v. Ryan
Anderson v. Ryan
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
The complainants and defendants being severally judgment creditors of G. B. Wright, executions were issued on the judgments of the complainants and of three of the other creditors and levied upon an improved lot in the town of Gallatin. On the 5th day ■of September, 1874, the lot was sold under these executions and purchased by the defendants at the price ■of $233.61, and was conveyed to them by the sheriff
The bill avers that the defendants reside out of the county of Sumner, in which the land in controversy lies. The payment of the redemption money to the clerk of the Circuit Court of that county, and the deposit of a receipt for the advance to the extent of the judgment of the complainants, being more than ten per cent on the original bid, seem to be in accordance with the provisions of the Code, sections 2136, 2136,a. In that view, the questions mainly discussed in the argument made in this court fairly arise.
• The complainants insist that by their first tender on the 7th of September, 1874, two days after the purchase by the defendants at the execution sale, they acquired the right to redeem because the defendants did not then advance on their bid. The Code, section 2127, provides: “But if the purchaser is bona fide a creditor by judgment, etc., and within twenty days after the sale he makes an advance on his bid, etc., then he shall hold the property subject to redemption at the price bid and such advance, just as if he had bid the whole sum at the time of the sale.” If the defendants did make a valid advance, as they undertook to do, on the 10th of September, 1874, within.
The second position of the complainants is, that the advance made by the defendants was not within the statute, because the defendants were joint purchasers, and could not, as such, advance several judgments due to, or owned by each defendant in severalty at the daté of the purchase, but only judgments due to, or owned by all at that date. The point is a nice one, and has been argued with marked ability by the counsel of the complainants. The argument is rested upon the fact that the right to redeem is given to-the “purchaser,” who is, at the time, a judgment creditor, and the deduction, as a logical result, that if several persons join in the purchase they constitute-“the purchaser,” and the judgments advanced must belong to them as a unit, not to each severally. And the analogy of the doctrine of set-off as confined to mutual debts is pressed with critical acumen. If the construction of the statute depended upon the strict rules of dialectics, it would be difficult to break the chain of reasoning. But I have heretofore had occasion to say, as a Judge, that exact logic is often too refined for the practical business of life, when stretched “upon the rack of this rough world,” and must give
The duty of the court in construing a statute is to ascertain its object, and carry out the object as near as may be in accordance with the rules of practical-good sense which would operate with the mass of the-community, for whose benefit the law was enacted, in exercising their rights under it. The object of the-section of the Code under consideration, as of the original act from which it was taken, was to secure to the debtor the full value of his land sold by execution, and at the same time to appropriate that value-to the satisfaction of his judgment debts. This was accomplished, so far as the debtor was concerned, by giving to him and his judgment creditors the right of redemption for two years. It was secured to the-creditor by giving him, if he purchased or redeemed, twenty days within which to ascertain “that the property is a sufficient security ” for the payment of his-debt. Whether the debt was a mutual one within the law of set-off, was due to the purchaser alone or-to himself and another, or to one only of several purchasers, was, it. may safely be said, not considered by the Legislature, as it is certainly not material to the practical object of the act. All that the statute contemplated was an advance to the debtor, and the securing of that advance to a judgment creditor. If this end can be better, or as well attained by several judgment creditors bidding and advancing together, instead of going through the circumlocution of each redeeming from the other, there can be no reasonable
The decree below must be affirmed with costs.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Anderson, Green & Co. v. Ryan & Co.
- Status
- Published