Opinion
(January Term, 1818.)
A sale of land under a fi. fa. which issued and bore teste after the death of the person who died seized, without any sci. fa. against his heirs or devisees, conveys no title to the purchaser.
EJECTMENT brought for the recovery of a lot in Washington, described in the plaintiff's declaration. The lot was admitted to have been the property of Dr. Tennant Bowen. At December Term, 1801, (685) a judgment was rendered in behalf of the United States, in the United States District Court for the District of Pamlico, against the said Tennant Bowen, on which judgment a writ of fi. fa. against the goods and chattels, lands and tenements of the said Tennant Bowen was issued from the same term of said court, and returned levied on sundry negroes; writs of venditioni exponas continued to issue from term to term until February Term, 1809, when the said negroes were sold for a sum less than the amount of the said judgment. From October Term, 1809, of said court there issued on said judgment a second fi. fa. against the goods and chattels, lands and tenements of the said Tennant Bowen, under which there was a levy on the lot in dispute, and the same was exposed to sale, and the defendant became the purchaser, to whom the marshal executed a regular conveyance. Tennant Bowen died in 1803 or 1804, leaving a last will duly executed, to convey lands, by which will the premises in dispute were devised to the lessor of the plaintiff.
The United States recovered a judgment against T. Bowen, on which a fi. fa. issued, was levied on certain slaves and returned. Bowen then made his will, and thereby devised the premises in dispute to the lessor of the plaintiff, and died. After his death several writs of veniditioni exponas were issued to compel a sale of the slaves before levied on, under one of which they were finally sold, some years after T. Bowen's death, but did not satisfy the debt. Whereupon a new fi. fa. against the goods and chattels, lands and tenements of T. Bowen, the testator, was sued out and levied on the lot in question, which was sold, and the defendant purchased and entered. The question is, Was that sale a good one, so as to pass the title to the defendant?
Without considering the operation of a judgment upon lands in this State, or deciding whether it binds from the time of the judgment, or whether lands are only bound from the teste of the execution, but assuming the law to be either way, this case seems to me to be (686) against the defendant. If the former, and our fi. fa. is to have the operation of the elegit, then a sci. fa. was necessary, and is the only way by which the plaintiffs could have execution of the lands. 3 Rep., 12; 2 Saun., 6, n. 1, and the authorities there cited. And a sale without a sci. fa. is void, so that the heir can maintain his action against him who enters under it. Fitz. N. B., 597, 598, D. On the other hand, if lands are bound in the hands of the heir by the fi. fa. as goods are by that writ in the hands of the executor, then, although they might have been sold after the death of the testator, upon a writ tested on a day previous to his death, they cannot be sold in any other case, unless the judgment be first revived by sci. fa. Baker v. Long, 2 N.C. 1; Heapy v. Paris, 6 Term, 639; Bragner v. Longmead, 7 Term., 20. As to a sale under a venditioni exponas, that stands on different grounds. That writ is not to authorize, but to compel, a sale of property previously in custodia legis. Cro. Jac., 73; 1 Ves., 196.
As this fi. fa., therefore, issued and bears teste long after T. Bowen's death, and has no relation to a day antecedent to that event, it passed no title whatsoever, and judgment must be entered for the plaintiff.
Cited: Wood v. Harrison, 18 N.C. 357; Samuel v. Zachary, 26 N.C. 379; Parish v. Turner, 27 N.C. 282; Jordan v. Pool, 28 N.C. 289.
(687)