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11 Ala. 360

Clements v. Elliott

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 15, 1847

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1847-01-15

The facts of this case are these: At the term of the county court of Tuscaloosa, holden in July 1841, the plaintiff in error, by notice and motion, recovered a judgment against the defendant, upon the allegation that he had paid money for him as a surety; an execution was issued upon this judgment, and placed in the hands .of the sheriff of Tuscaloosa, which, on the 29th September, 1841, was levied on a negro boy, as the property of the defendant, to whom Moses Hendrix…

Decided 1847-01-15

COLLIER, C. J.

¶1The trial of the right of property, to

¶2which the plaintiff and Hendrix were parties, was consequential to, and dependent upon the judgment recovered against the defendant, in 1841. The object of the plaintiff in the *362prosecution of the suit against the property, was to obtain satisfaction of his judgment, and if that judgment had lost its vitality by reversal on error, pending ihe claim of Hendrix, even if the court had proceeded to the trial, for the purpose of ascertaining who should pay the costs, and the claimant was unsuccessful, no order of sale would have followed. In fact, if the judgment against the defendant had been vacated, there would have been nothing of which the court could have ordered satisfaction, or upon which such an order could have rested.

¶3The defendant was no party to the suit between plaintiff and Hendrix, and prima facie had no interest in it; consequently, the decision in that case determined nothing adversely to him, nor imposed upon him any liability beyond what had been already ascertained. It determined nothing more, than that a slave which had been levied on under an execution founded on the judgment against the defendant, was his property, and subject to its satisfaction; and that the slave might be available for that purpose, it was ordered that he be sold. The reversal of the judgment, in point of law annulled it, and left the order nothing upon which to rest— its effect upon the order was quite as potent as the payment of the amount of the judgment and execution.

¶4It follows, that the judgment of the circuit court superseding the order of sale, was in conformity to law; and it is therefore affirmed.

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