Howe ex rel. Dibble v. Robinson

Citations

• 20 Fla. 352

Syllabus

<p>1/ The creditors of a dissolved insolvent corporation may seek a court of equity to subject its real property and effects to sale to satisfy its debts without proceeding at law to judgment, execution and return of nulla bona. In this case the time in which, by the statute, the existence of the corporation for the purpose of being sued was continued had expired.</p> <p>2. The dissolution of a corporation does not extinguish its debts. The debts survive, and its creditors may enforce their claims against any property belonging to the corporation which has not passed into the hands of a bona fide purchaser. Such property is affected - with a trust primarily for the benefit of creditors.</p> <p>3. The expiration of the time during which an execution may be issued upon a judgment «under the statute without proceeding by scire facias quan'e executionem, non does not destroy the binding efficacy of the judgment upon the land of the debtor, and the judgment creditor can resort to proceedings other than that of scire facias when he can make them available to collect his debt.</p> <p>4. Scire facias qua/re executionem, non does not lie upon a judgment against a dissolved corporation after the expiration of the time' in which its existence is continued for the purpose of being sued.</p> <p>5. Real property levied on under a junior judgment and sold, is still subject to the lien of an older judgment, and the circumstance of not proceeding upon the older judgment until a subsequent lien has been obtained and oarried into execution will not displace the prior lien. The case of Moseley vs. Edwards, 2 Fla., 429, cited and followed.</p> <p>6. The statutory limitation to an action upon a judgment in this State is twenty years. Where the judgment is against a dissolved corporation, the time which has expired is fifteen years, and during the greater part of this time there was no corporation in existence from which payment of interest or principal of the judgment debt could have bee