Motley v. H. Vicello & Bro.
Motley v. H. Vicello & Bro.
Opinion of the Court
after making the foregoing statement, delivered the following opinion of the court:
The correctness of the decree of August 28, 1918, under
“A creditor, before obtaining a judgment or decree for his claim, may * * * institute any suit which he might institute after obtaining such judgment or decree to avoid a gift, conveyance * * * or charge upon the estate of his debtor declared void by either of the two preceding sections, and he may in such suit have all the relief in respect to said estate which he would be entitled to after obtaining a judgment or decree for the claim which he may be entitled to recover. A creditor availing himself of this section shall have a lien from the time of bringing his suit on all the estate, real and personal, hereinbefore mentioned, and a petitioning creditor shall be entitled to a like lien from the time of filing his petition in the court or in the clerk’s office of the court in which the suit is brought; but such lien shall not be valid against creditors * * * until and except from the time a memorandum setting forth the title of the cause, the .general object thereof, the court wherein it is pending, the amount of the claim asserted by the complainant, a, description of the property, and the name of the person whose estate is intended to be affected thereby shall be left with the clerk of the court of the. county or corpora^ tion wherein the property is, who shall forthwith record the said memorandum in the deed book and index the same in the name of the person aforesaid * *
With this preface, we will proceed to deal with the ques
The question must be answered in the negative.
In our view of the case it is entirely unnecessary for us to deal here with the argument presented for the appellant on the subject of how far the decrees of March and July, 1916, as entered, may have bound the appellees as quasi, although not formal, parties to the cause at the time the decree of July, 1916, was entered. Even if the appellees had been properly made parties and had been before the court when the decrees of March and July, 1916, were entered, neither of those decrees was a final decree. Hence, the court had jurisdiction on a rehearing to correct the errors in them, as was done by the decree appealed from. Touching an error of law apparent from the record, the petition did not require affidavit in support thereof in order to be sufficient as a petition for rehearing. On the other hand, if it were considered that the appellees were not parties before the court in any sense at the time the decrees of March and July, 1916, were entered, still they had a right to file their petition for a rehearing of these interlocutory decrees. Daily’s Ex’r v. Warren, 80 Va. 512. See also Gills
As we view the case, it will be necessary for us to further consider only the questions raised by the assignments of error which are stated below.
This question must be answered in the negative.
Without reference to any other provision of it, we deem it sufficient to say that the memorandum in question is fatally defective in that it failed to comply with the statutory requirement with respect to setting forth the description of the property intended to be affected by the petition of appellant.
As said in Lile’s Notes on Eq. Pleading (3), page 231: “Description of res in pleading.—The res affected must be so described in the pleadings as to be capable of identification by the purchaser, had he known of and examined the record of the suit. Va. Iron, Coal & Coke Co. v. Roberts, 103 Va. 661, 49 S. E. 984.”
As held in Va. Iron, Coal & Coke Co. v. Roberts, 103 Va. 661, 49 S. E. 984, supra, “A purchaser having actual or constructive notice of a pending suit can only be held chargeable with knowledge of the facts of which the record in the suit, as it existed at the time of his purchase, would have
If the petition of the appellant mentioned in the memorandum could be referred to in aid of the description of the property, it would furnish no such aid. The petition contains precisely the same defects as the memorandum.
The decree of August 28, 1918, appealed from was, therefore, correct in holding that the said memorandum was defective in its terms, and therefore invalid.
This being our view of the case, it is unnecessary for us to pass upon the holding in the decree appealed from that the memorandum was invalid because not acknowledged for record, and, hence, was not recorded as required by law; and we express no opinion on that subject. And, for tne same reason, it is unnecessary for us to pass upon the question of whether the decrees of March and July, 1916, were or were not absolutely void for lack of jurisdiction of the court over the necessary parties.
We think this point is well taken, if the facts are correctly stated.
The record before us does not disclose what the pro
Reversed in part and affirmed in pa/rt.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- J. J. Motley v. H. Vicello & Bro.s.
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Res Adjudicata—Finality of Decree—Decree in Suit to Set Aside Deed of Trust as Fraudulent—Rehearing—Case at Bar. —In a suit under section 2460, Code of 1904, to set aside a deed of trust as fraudulent, decrees, the first of which establishe dappellant’s claim as a lien upon the property and referred the cause to a commissioner to take account of liens, and the second of which confirmed the report of the commissioner, to which there was no exception, and ordered a sale of the land, did not establish the validity of appellant’s lien as res adjudicata¡ so that the court could not afterwards consider the question of the invalidity of the lien as against other lien creditors, to-wit, appellees, afterwards setting up by petition alleged error of law in the holding of such decrees apparent from the record, whether appellees were or were net formal parties to the cause before the decrees were entered, since the decrees were not final. 2. Rehearing—Interlocutory Decrees.—Before final decree, a court of equity has jurisdiction on a rehearing to correct errors apparent from the face of the record in interlocutory decrees and orders entered in the cause. 8. Rehearing—-Affidavit—Errors Apparent from the Record.— Touching an error of law apparent from the record, a petition does not require an affidavit in support thereof in order to be sufficient as a petition for rehearing. 4. Rehearing—Petition by Persons not Parties to the Cause—Creditors.—Creditors of defendant, appellees, not parties before the court in any sense at the time the interlocutory decreés were entered in a suit to set aside a deed of trust as fraudulent and establish a lien of appellant, have a right to file a petition for a rehearing of these interlocutory decrees. 5. Rehearing—Decree Confirming a Commissioner’s Report.—On petition for a rehearing, the circumstance that the decree upon which the rehearing is sought confirmed a commissioner’s report, to which there was no exception at the time, is immaterial .if the decree is interlocutory. 6. Lis Pendens—Defective Memorandum—Code of 190b, Section 2b60—Description of Property.—A memorandum required by section 2460, Code of 1904, that fails to comply with the statutory requirement with respect to setting forth the description of the property intended to be affected by the Us pendens, is fatally defective. 7. Lis Pendens—Memorandum—Sufficiency of Description—Code of 190b, Section 2b60.—Since, where the other requisites of the statute are complied with as against other lien creditors, the lien, under the terms of the statute in question (Code 1904, section 2460), dates from the time the memorandum is left with the clerk, the sufficiency of the description of the property contained in the memorandum must be tested as of the time the memorandum was left with the clerk to be recorded. Thus, where the memorandum refers to the bill which was not filed until some days after the memorandum was left with the clerk, the description of the property in the memorandum cannot be aided by the description in the bill. 8. Lis Pendens—Description of Property—Pleading—That is Certain which can be'made Certain.—The legal maxim that that is certain which can be made certain is applicable to a description of property in a Us pendens. 9. Lis Pendens—Pleading—Description of Bes in Pleading.—The res affected must be so described in the pleadings as to be capable of identification by the purchaser, had he known of and examined the record of the suit. 10. Lis Pendens—Description of Property.—Where the memorandum required to be filed with the clerk under section 2460 of the Code of 1904 contained in itself a material misdescription, and was absolutely unaided in its description of the property by the references to the pleading, it'is fatally defective. 11. Creditors’ Suits—Asserting Claim Held Invalid as Lien Against Surplus.—Where appellant’s lien was held invalid, because of defects in his lis pendens, as against other lien creditors, appellees, if, when all liens and the costs are paid out of the proceeds of the sale.of the land, a balance is left, the appellant may assert his claim against such balance.