CORRECTION. At the bottom of page 558, insert the following: For affirmance-THE CHIEF-JUSTICE, COLLINS, DEPUE, DIXON, GARRISON, GUMMERE, LIPPINCOTT, LUDLOW, VAN SYCKEL, BOGERT, DAYTON, HENDRICKSON, NIXON—13. For reversal-None. CASES ADJUDGED IN THE COURT OF CHANCERY OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, OCTOBER TERM, 1896. ALEXANDER T. MCGILL, CHANCELLOR. HENRY C. PITNEY, JOHN R. EMERY, ALFRED REED, GREY, VICE-CHANCELLORS. ROBERT LUNDY v. JULIA B. SEYMOUR. Under a writ of fieri facias, issued upon a judgment three years after its recovery, a sheriff levied upon and advertised for sale, four distinct parcels of land belonging to the defendant in execution, one of which alone, was of sufficient value to have thrice paid the judgment and the other parcels were of value more than enough to pay the judgment several times, and in absence of the defendant, who had no notice or knowledge of the intended Lundy v. Seymour. sale, he sold the four parcels in one lot to the attorney of the plaintiff in execution, for one-fourth the amount due upon the judgment, and thereupon the attorney caused the sheriff's deed to be made to a third party, through whom and another, the title to the whole property, subject to the inchoate dower right of a wife of advanced years, now deceased, within four months and a half after the sale, went to the attorney's wife, who, though she claims to be an innocent purchaser for value, does not, by her answer, disclose the circumstances of her purchase or state the value she paid for the property, and who appears to have dealt with the property since the sheriff's sale as though she deemed the title of it to be subject to question.-Held, that a preliminary injunction will issue to restrain the attorney's wife from prosecuting an action of ejectment against the defendant in execution, to recover possession of part of the land, to the end that the status quo may be preserved until full proofs and final hearing shall be had, upon bond being given under rule 126; and this, though the complainant has delayed his application to this court for fourteen years after he was put upon inquiry concerning the sale, it appearing that during that time he suffered mental affliction which was more or less incapacitating, and it failing to appear that the defendant in this suit will suffer prejudice at the hearing, or that the court will be embarrassed or obstructed in administering justice, because of the delay. On order to show cause why an injunction shall not issue to restrain a suit in ejectment, heard on bill, answer and affidavits. The defendant's husband was the attorney-at-law of one Ellen Underwood, and, as such, for her, in March, 1879, recovered judgment, in the Hudson county circuit court, for $372.72, against the complainant. In December, 1881, in virtue of a writ of fieri facias, issued upon that judgment, he caused the sheriff of Hudson county to levy upon and sell four tracts of land belonging to the complainant, all of which were situate in the city of Jersey City, but were wholly distinct and separate from each other. The first of them was a parcel upon which was erected a dwelling-house, having a frontage of one hundred feet on Central avenue and running back therefrom about one hundred and eleven feet. The second was a vacant city lot twenty-five feet wide and one hundred and twenty-five feet deep, which fronted upon the side of Central avenue opposite to the side of that avenue upon which the first tract fronted. The third tract was about five and a half acres of vacant meadow land, having a frontage on Tonnele avenue, and the fourth was a Lundy v. Seymour. single vacant lot upon Summit avenue, twenty-five feet wide and one hundred feet deep. The complainant values the whole property at $26,000. The defendant, in her answer, says that at the time of the sale it was not worth more than $8,000, and was encumbered by municipal liens. The value placed upon the first parcel by the tax assessor was $2,500. The property appears to have been unencumbered except by municipal liens for taxes, water rents and assessments. It does not appear what such liens upon the second, third and fourth tracts aggregated at the time of the sale, but it does appear that, upon the first parcel, with interest, they amounted to about $800. The complainant did not know of the sale, and was not present when it took place, on the 16th of March, 1882, three years after the recovery of the judgment against him. At the sale all four of the tracts of land were offered and sold together in one lot. Mr. Seymour bid for them $100 and they were struck down to him at that price. He signed the conditions of sale "R. B. Seymour, Atty." Subsequently he directed the sheriff to make a deed for the property to Charles H. Furst, and when the deed was delivered, on the 4th of April, 1882, he received it from the sheriff and, after paying the sheriff's execution fees and deducting their amount from the bid of $100, he receipted for the balance of the bid as the attorney of Ellen Underwood. In the month of July following, Furst and his wife, by their deed, which recited that it was made in consideration of $3,000 paid to them by its grantee, conveyed the property to William. B. Scott, of Kingston, New York, who, with his wife, on the 22d of the next month, August, 1882, made three deeds to the defendant in this suit, the wife of Mr. Seymour. By one of those deeds they conveyed to her the first parcel of land, reciting $2,000 consideration paid, and by another they conveyed to her the second and fourth parcels, reciting $2,600 consideration paid, and by the remaining deed they conveyed the third parcel, reciting $3,000 consideration paid. In the deeds thus made by Furst and Scott the only covenants are against encumbrances or impairment in title by the acts of the grantors. |