Judicial sale

“ And in no event could a sale by Clarke, in conformity with the order, have been a judicial sale, but simply a sale by a private individual authorized to make it under acts passed for his relief, and assented to by the Chancellor, for the purpose of ultimately substantiating and verifying by a court of record the transfer of the property. It was a sale made without process, not by an officer in any sense of the word, but by a private person to a private person, after negotiation between them, and done by one of them, who had only in a particular way the assent of the Chancellor to sell. ”

“ A sale by order of a probate court is a judicial sale. Moore v. Shultz, 13 Pa. St. 98; Grignon's Lessee v. Astor, 2 How. 319; Thompson v. Tolmie, 2 Pet. 157; Lalanne's Heirs v. Moreau, 13 La. 431; Howard v. Zeyer, 18 La. Ann. 407.
Such sales are, therefore, protected by the rule that a title acquired at a decretal sale of lands, made by a court in the exercise of competent jurisdiction, is not rendered invalid by the reversal of the decree. ”

“ If, from reasons of public policy, the legislature declares that a railway shall not become the purchaser of a parallel or competing line, the purchase is not the less unlawful, because the parties choose to let it take the form of a judicial sale. A person who, by reason of any statutory disability, such as infancy, lunacy, marriage, or otherwise, is incompetent to buy at private sale, is not less incompetent from becoming the purchaser at a judicial sale. ”

“ Judicial sales made under the decretal orders of courts of chancery, are also, in this country, governed substantially by the same rules, except that such sales are usually made by the marshal, or a master in chancery acting as an officer of the court, and are always regarded as under the control of the court, and subject to the power of the court to set the sale aside for good cause shown, or open it any time before it has been confirmed, if the circumstances of the case require the exercise of that power. ”

“ Such an appeal does not operate as a supersedeas, and the mortgagee and purchaser of the property in the mean time applied to the clerk of the court, in whose office the deed of sale was recorded, for a monition or advertisement in conformity to an act of the legislature of the State, entitled 'An Act for the further assurance to purchasers at judicial sales,' and praying that the process might to granted requiring all parties alleging any informality or irregularity in the said sale to show cause, if any they had, why the sale should not be confirmed and homologated. ”

“ Whatever title the law gives, the purchaser takes, no more and no less; and he must govern himself accordingly. Any different rule prevailing on this subject in Louisiana or any other state by statute cannot change the position of the United States with respect to judicial sales in proceedings instituted by them. Nor is this position at all affected by the doctrine that upon the reversal of a judgment, under which a sale has been had, the purchaser is entitled to a return of his money. There has been no reversal of the judgment in the confiscation proceedings against Conrad. ”

“ Can it, then, be doubted, if these things are true, that the conduct of the defendant deprived the complainant of the advantage which he would have received from a fair sale of his property, at which there would have been competition among persons, both able and willing to buy?
The law will not tolerate any influences likely to prevent competition at a judicial sale, and it accords to every debtor the chance for a fair sale and full price ”

“ The general authority of the officer in judicial sales under the act of 1851, in the exercise of which he has a large discretion, is limited and defined when applied to sales under judgments for delinquent taxes, by the provision declaring that the sheriff in selling the property assessed 'shall only sell the smallest quantity that any purchaser will take, and pay the judgment and all costs'-language which imports a negative upon a sale in any other way. ”

“ With the investment of the proceeds of the sale the purchaser under the decree had no concern. A purchaser at a judicial sale is not bound in any case to see to the application of the purchase-money. That is under the control of the court ”

“ Thus directors of the company, owing duties to its stockholders and creditors, not only combined to obtain the company's property for themselves at a sacrifice, through the formality of a judicial sale, but were active participants in successful efforts to defeat a sale for $550,000 in order that they might become the purchasers for $50,000. ”

“ A purchaser under judicial process, pays the plaintiff his demand on the property sold: to the extent of the purchase money, he demand on the defendant from his adjudged obligation. Time has given an inviolable sanctity to every act of the court preceding the sale, which precludes the defendant from controverting the absolate right of the plaintiff to the full benefit of his judgment ”

“ The defendant, therefore, standing in the place of Jones, would, upon clear principles of equity, have a right to demand of the plaintiff the title acquired at the sheriff's sale to the judicial mortgage, on paying the purchase-money. And if the purchase was made in bad faith, and with the intent to speculate at the expense of the rights and interests of the client, using the knowledge derived from that relation for this purpose, the remedy might not be too strong even to set aside the sale, and relieve the property from the encumbrance without the terms mentioned. ”

“ While purchases at judicial sales in the name of the solicitors and attorneys of parties whose property is sold will be scrutinized with jealous care, they will be sustained if no injustice is thereby done to the parties they represent. Here the company, whom Baker represented as solicitor, confessed its inability to pay the debt it owed, and consented that the property held as security be sold. In the decree which it assented to, special provision was made for a purchase by or for the bondholders. ”

“ Trustees are surcharged if in the performance of their duties they do not obtain a known market price in a sale of property belonging to the trust estate. The reasonable price under the common counts in pleading at Common Law was always the market price.
If it is not to be so, how are the Judges ever to instruct a jury? Shall they now say that there no longer is any measure of damages except that which may, some time in the future, be determined by the Supreme Court of the United States after a criminal prosecution has been brought? The state of trade will become appalling and impossible. ”

“ It is enough that it comes too late. Surely no one would suppose that an officer having charge of the sale of property of such value-a sale made at the end of prolonged litigation-should at the last moment, in response to a dispatch from a stranger, postpone the sale. The master's action was unquestionably proper, and, if the party desired the intervention of the court, his duty was to apply at once, and not wait until after confirmation; for then the rights of the purchaser are vested, and something more than mere inadequacy of price must appear before the sale can be disturbed. ”

“ It is conceded that the Federal right could be set up in the state court from which the execution issued, and, if denied, the ultimate rights of the parties can be determined upon writ of error to this court. In the view we have taken of this case the Federal court had not lost its jurisdiction to protect the purchaser at its sale upon direct proceedings such as are now before us. ”

“ Since no individual complainant has established that he has the statutory jurisdictional amount in controversy, to rest jurisdiction of a Federal court on no more than the unified desire of many complainants to violate a State statute prohibiting monopolistic price fixing, does constitute a 'novel, if not unique,' and 'grave' judicial departure from the jurisdictional requirement fixed by Congress. ”

“ And from all the facts the jury might reasonably have concluded that the plaintiffs were willing, by purchasing the property, to aid the vendors in defeating any efforts of their creditors, by the ordinary process of the law, to obtain satisfaction of their demands. The correctness of this interpretation of the conduct of the parties to the sale is sustained by the admissions and declarations of the vendors, made so nearly contemporaneous with the delivery of the property that they may be said to have sprung out of the very transaction in virtue of which the plaintiffs claim title. ”

“ There is nothing to show that the order of sale was even improvidently made, much less that it was procured by fraud, or that the property was sacrificed. If the circumstances justified immediate action, the court had power to order a sale in advance of a final decree. The sale was not ordered or made until after Hill had been duly served with a copy of the order of November 28, 1883, to appear and plead, answer or demur, to the cross-bill by the day fixed in that order. ”

“ Even the cloud cast upon his title by a tax under which such a sale could be made would be a grievance which would entitle him to go into a court of equity for relief.' It may be proper to observe that in the present case the illegality does not appear wholly on the face of the record, but that it is shown in part by evidence outside, to-wit, the fact that the title to the land sought to be charged was acquired by a bona fide purchaser without notice. ”

“ When, therefore, land is once sold on execution, and converted into money, all persons who claim to have liens upon it by judgment or otherwise (with a few exceptions) are compelled to follow the money or lose their security. Hence it often happens that, when money is made by sale of land on a junior judgment, the plaintiff does not obtain satisfaction, and is sometimes involved in a fresh litigation with creditors claiming to have prior liens. In these contests the defendant is usually an indifferent spectator. ”

“ The instrument by virtue of which that alienation was evidenced whether called a deed, a bill of sale, or an assignment-was not a chose in action payable to the assignee, but an evidence of the assignee's right, title, and estate in and to property. Assuming that the transfer was not colorable or fraudulent, the Federal statutes have always permitted the vendee or assignee to sue in the United States courts to recover property or an interest in property when the requisite value and diversity of citizenship existed. ”

“ It is that even if the plaintiffs below are corporations which this court can recognize as such, they cannot sue in the Court of Claims for the proceeds of the sale of captured and abandoned property because, as it is argued, the Captured and Abandoned Property Act provides only for suits by persons who could have given aid and comfort to the rebellion. It is said, corporations were incapable of giving such aid, and that they cannot make proof that they have never given it. ”

“ If the paper here called an order of sale is to be treated as a writ of execution or fieri facias issued to the sheriff, or as a process of any kind issued from the court, which the law required to be issued under the seal of the court, there can be no question that it was void, and conferred no authority upon the officer to sell the land.
The authorities are uniform that all process issuing from a court, which by law authenticates such process with its seal, is void if issued without a seal. ”

“ Admitting their legal liability for the specific amounts assessed against them, and conceding that what they owe must, when paid, go in satisfaction of Thompson's judgments, they dispute the authority of any judicial tribunal to compel them to pay it over. With money in their hands, equitably belonging to the judgment creditor, they walk out of the court whose judgments remain unsatisfied, announcing, in effect, that they will hold negotiations only with a 'special collector,' who has no existence. ”

“ These sales are less expensive than when made on executions; more time is allowed to make them; the discretion of the court is exercised as to time, manner, and the terms of sale; whereas on sales by a sheriff, all is by compulsion and no credit is allowed; he cannot offer one entire piece of property for sale in parcels; the administrator can divide and sell as best subserves the interest of the heirs, and sell only so much as the emergency of the case requires. ”

“ There is no express provision giving the court power to order a sale. The 3d section authorizes the assignee 'to sell, manage, and dispose of the property, to sue for and defend the same, subject to the orders and directions of the court, as fully to all intents and purposes as if the same were vested in or might be exercised by such bankrupt before or at the time of his bankruptcy, declared as aforesaid.' Connecting this with the 15th section, declaring the effect of a sale by an assignee, the answer to the second question is most obvious. ”

“ Meanwhile, he accepted the money the defendant had paid on account of the purchase, and he stood silently by, aserting no claim, while the defendant was making valuable improvements upon the lot, at a cost of $6,000 or $7,000, a sum about equal to the value of the property at the time of the purchase. To permit him now to assert that the sale was invalid, because the vendor was of weak mind, is to allow him to reap a profit from his own unconscionable silence and delay. I cannot think a court of equity should lend itself to such a wrong. ”