Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad v. City of Clarksdale

Citations

• 257 U.S. 10
• 42 S. Ct. 27
• 66 L. Ed. 104
• 1921 U.S. LEXIS 1309

Syllabus

<p>1. A judgment of a state court denying the validity of a title claimed under an execution sale based upon a federal court judgment, because of supposed irregularities in the marshal’s attempted exercise of his authority to sell, the authority itself not having been drawn in question, is reviewable by certiorari and not by writ of error, under Jud. Code, § 237, as amended. P. 15.</p> <p>2. The application of state laws to a marshal’s sale of property under a common-law execution issued on praecipe from a federal court, is governed by tbe conformity provisions of Rev. Stats., §§ 914, 916. P. 18.</p> <p>3. The provisions of the Act of March 3, 1893, c. 225, 27 Stat. 751, relative to the place of sale, apply only to judicial sales made under order or decree and requiring confirmation by the court for their validity. P. 18.</p> <p>4. An assignment of error held sufficient to submit to the court below the question whether a marshal’s sale was valid under Rev. Stats., § 916. P. 19.</p> <p>5. Under Rev. Stats., § 916, giving to the party who has recovered judgment in a federal court “ similar remedies * * * by execution * * * as are now provided in like causes by the laws of the State in which such court is held, or by any such laws hereafter enacted which may be adopted by general rules of any such circuit or district court,” the state law applicable is that which was in force when the act of which § 916 was a part was originally enacted, viz, June 1, 1872, in the absence of general' rules adopting later state law. P. 19.</p> <p>6. Under § 849 of the Mississippi Code of 1871, -which, prior to amendment by § 3467 of the Code of 1892, provided that shares or interests in any corporation, as well as banknotes or evidences of debt circulating as money, might be taken and sold under an execution in the same manner as goods and chattels, or applied to the payment of the execution, and required the custodian of the corporate books to give the levying officer a certificate of t