Opinion
Decided March, 1879.
A judgment is not satisfied by a deputy of the sheriff selling, on execution, the debtor's property to the debtor, on credit, in violation of an order to sell for cash.
A sheriff, who has been compelled to compensate the creditor for such neglect of the deputy, may, as plaintiff in interest, maintain an action on the unsatisfied judgment orally assigned to him by the creditor.
DEBT, on a judgment on which an execution was issued. Facts found by a referee. The execution was delivered to a deputy of the sheriff, with an order to levy it on certain hay of the defendant, and to sell the hay for cash. The deputy sold the hay on credit to the defendant, who has not paid for it. The plaintiff sued the sheriff for the neglect of the deputy, and recovered full damages, which the sheriff paid. The plaintiff made an oral assignment of his first judgment to the sheriff, who is the plaintiff in interest.
Mugridge, for the plaintiff in interest.
The execution was not satisfied. Churchill v. Warren, 2 N.H. 298; Folsom v. Chesley, 2 N.H. 432; Mickles v. Haskin, 11 Wend. 125; Green v. Burke, 23 Wend. 488; Ostrander v. Walter, 2 Hill 329; People v. Hopson, 1 Denio 674, 578; Peck v. Tiffany, 2 N.Y. 451; U.S. v. Dashiel, 3 Wall. 688; Whiting v. Beebe, 12 Ark. 421; Smith v. Hughes, 24 Ill. 277; French v. Snyder, 30 Ill. 343; Cooley v. Harper, 4 Ind. 454.
This action can be maintained by the plaintiff in interest, who has been compelled to satisfy the judgment. Allen v. Holden, 9 Mass. 133; Smith v. Alexander, 4 Sneed (Tenn.) 482.
Greene, for the defendant.
The defendant did not lose his property by the nominal levy. The title was not changed. The sale of his property to him on credit operated practically as an abandonment of the levy at his request, in consideration of his promise to pay the debt to the deputy.
Judgment for the plaintiff.
FOSTER, J., did not sit: the others concurred.