Levy

n. and v. 1.

The verb, in old English law, was used to signify to raise or lift up; to cast or throw up; to set or put up; to erect or build; to make or construct. To levy a house or mill, a dyke or pond, and to levy a nuisance, are examples of this use of the word.

2.

Later, the verb became employed in the sense of to carry on proceedings incident to a fine of lauds; thus, to levy a fine became a usual expression.

3.

In modem practice, the verb levy is used as meaning to take into legal custody, in obedience to the writ, property to satisfy a process such as attachment or Jieri facias, which calls for a seizure of lands or goods. And the noun levy means the act of taking property under process; the seizure. In this connection, the words are sometimes extended to include the entire execution of the process, the collecting the money; but, strictly, only the seizure is signified. Such kinds of property, and such interests or rights having the nature of ownership as are subject to levy, and may be taken to satisfy an attachment or execution, are termed leviable.

4.

The verb levy is also used, in reference to the administration of government, in the sense of to exact by authority. Thus, to levy a tax sometimes means to assess or impose a tax (see, however, Valle v. Fargo, cited below); and to levy a military force, is for the sovereign power to call upon a vassal or district to furnish a quota of troops towards impending military operations. In this connection, the noun often signifies that which is called for or obtained by an authoritative requisition. Thus a tax levy means the total sum to be raised by a tax; the levies, in speaking of preparations for war, are the contributions of men which the sovereign has received or expects from his subjects, or from districts of country subject to him. The phrase to levy bears different significations, according to its object. To levy war is to make war; to levy money is to exact it. And although its application to the facias may be comparatively modern, yet the expression " to levy on goods and chattels " is one that has been long used in the English law; and, wherever found, it means to do the act or acts by which a sheriff sets apart and appropriates, for the purpose of satisfying the command of his writ, a part or the whole of the defendant's goods and chattels. The usual mode of levying, in England, is by seizing the goods, or, if they are collected in one place, by seizing part in the name of the whole. But actual touch is not necessary. It is enough if the officer, at the time of levying, have the goods in his presence, and peaceably under his control.

Lloyd V. Wycoff, 11 'N. J. L. 218, 227. Compare Princeton Bank v. Crozer, 22 Id. 383..

Applied to taxes, levy means not to assess a tax, but to collect it; raise it by execution; enforce payment. Hence a covenant that lessee shall pay all taxes to be levied during the term does not bind him to pay taxes assessed during the term, but which do not become due and collectible till after its expiration.

Valle v. Fargo, 1 Mo. App. 344.

To constitute a valid levy of an execution on personal property, the sheriff must do such acts as would subject him to an action of trespass, but for the protection of the execution.

Allen v. Mc Calla, 25 Iowa, 464; Mc Burnie v. Overstreet, 8 B. Man. 300; Rives ». Porter, 7 Ired. L. 74; Minor v. Ilerriford, 25 lU. 344; Westervelt v. Pinckney, 14 Wend. 123; Minor v. Smith, 13 Ohio St. 79.

It is essential to the valid levy of an execution on personal property that the officer should take actual possession of it.

Banks V. Evans, 18 Miss. 35; s. p. State v. Poor, 4 Dev. i- B. L. 384.

To constitute a levy, the officer must take actual control of the property Levy r.

Shockley, 29 Ga. 710; Minturn v. Stryker, 1 Edm. Sel. Cos. 356; Brown v. Pratt, 4 Wis. 513.

To constitute a valid levy under an execution, the property levied must be at the time in the power or the view of the sheriff.

Linton v. Ford, 46 Pa. St. 294; Dresser ?■. Ainsworth, 9 Barb. 619; Mc Donald u. Gifford, 6 Pha. 315.

To make a valid levy, the sheriff must have the goods within his view, and under his power. Merely seizing a few articles outside of a warehouse or store, and proclaiming a levy on the goods locked up in the store, and not within view, is not a good and valid levy; he ought, if necessary, to break open the store, and actually seize the goods, and take an inventory of them.

Haggerty v. Wilber, 16 Johns. 287.

To make a valid levy on personal property, the sheriff m\ist have the property within his power and control, or at least witliin his view, unless the defendant acknowledges a levy by executing a delivery can's Appeal, 37 Id. 600; Cary v. Bright, 58 Id. 70. To constitute a levy, the officer should enter upon the premises where the goods are, and take actual possession of them (if they are such that possession of them can be taken). The goods should be brought within his view, and subjected to his control; and it is proper also, if not necessary, that an inventory should be taken. The officer should assert his title to them by virtue of the execution; and his acts should be public, open, and unequivocal, and, it would seem, such as to subject him to an action as a trespasser but for the protection of the execution.

Beekman v. Lansing, 3 Wend. 446. See also Westervelt v. Pinckney, 14 Id. 123; Green v. Burke, 23 Id. 490; Camp v. Chamberlain, 5 Den. 198; Connah v. Hale, 23 Wend. 462.

To constitute a levy, the officer must take actual possession, and for this purpose the goods should be within his view, and subject to his disposition and control, though it is not necessary that he should remove them, or continue in actual possession. A waiver of these requisites may bind the defendant, but is not a levy, and cannot affect conflicting executions.

E.ay V. Harcourt, 19 Wend. 495; Van Wyck v. Pine, 2 HiU, 666. And see Gordon v. Gilfoil, 27 La. Ann. 265.

An officer need not take entire manual possession of property levied on. Very v. Watkins, 23 How. 469; Robuck v. Thornton, 19 (?a. 149; Barker v. Binninger, 14 N. Y. 270; Bond v. Willett, 31 Id. 102; Bullitt V. Winstons, 1 Munf. 269. If the property is present, subject to the officer's control, and he openly states that he levies upon it, asserting his authority over it by virtue of the execution, these things are enough. Barker v. Binninger, 14 N. Y. 270; Sheffield v. Key, 14 Ga. 528; Hill V. Harris, 10 B. Mon. 120; Jayne v. Dillon, 28 Miss. 283; Caldwell v. Fifield, 24