Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/769

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

PLANT y. GUNN. 767 �the courts. The book intended by the law of Georgia to give notice cf. judgment liens is the execution docket, and the amount due on the execution issued upon this judgment was regularly entered by the clerk on that docket at the November term, 1866, during which the execution was issued, The book of complete records has, in fact, fallen into disuse in many of the counties in Georgia ; and no such book bas been kept in Bibb county since 1856. �(4) The answer admitted that the tract of land in Jones county had been recovered from Lowell C. Woolfolk and con- demned as assets of the estate of James H. Woolfolk ; but this wasdone after a long litigation^ lasting liom 1873 to 1880. The committee of creditors had sold the land at the price of $15,700, but the purchase money was payable in three instal- ments,— -pne-third cash, one-third due in one year from date of sale, (November, 1880,) and one-third due in two years from that date; that only $3,100 had in fact been collected and deposited in the registry of the court; that the prope^r dis- tribution of this fund would yet have to be;submitted to and: passed upon by the bankrupt court, hence this fund -wasnot e^ually accessible to the lien of the judgment with the fund raised from the sale of the mortgaged premises. �It was shown by the testimony of Albert sB. Ross, clerk of the superior court pi the county of Bibb, and of several mem-' bers of the bar of long practice and experience, that the uni- versal custom was to resort to the execution docket for the ascertainment of judgment liens, and if any further infor- mation was needed than was disclosed by that docket, to resorf to the judgment entered on the declaration and which re- mained of file in the office of the clerk of the court. �Upon these facts the following ralings were made orally by Mr. Justice William B. Woods :* �1. The decision in this case, reported in 94 U. S. 664, ia an adjudication that the judgment in favor of D. F, Gunn, at the November term, 1866, of Bibb superior court, for $11,212, is a valid judgment, and is such as against.the �♦Reported by W. B. Hill, Esq., of the Macon bar. ��� �