Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 4.djvu/141

EQUITY JURISDICTION. 1 25 utes) stand upon the same footing as judgments In this respect; namely, that they neither require proof, nor can be impeached. Therefore, an execution can issue upon a recognizance or statute just as upon a judgment. Secondly, the statute of Westminster 2 (13 Edward I.), c. 18, having given to conusees of recognizances, as well as to judgment creditors, a right to extend one half of the land of their conusors or judgment debtors, this right was held to constitute a general lien upon the land of the conusors or judg- ment debtors, as well that which they owned when the recogni- zance was acknowledged or the judgment recovered, as that which they afterwards acquired ; and the death of a conusor or judgment debtor did not affect this lien, or the right to issue an execution to enforce it, otherwise than by making it necessary for the conu- see or judgment creditor first to issue a scire facias. Hence, such conusee or judgment creditor, while he could not maintain an action against the heir of the deceased conusor^ or judgment debtor, and had no claim upon more than one half of the land which had descended to such heir,^ yet he could (subject only to the condition of first issuing a scire facias) issue an execution, and have one half of such land extended, including not only the land which the conusor or judgment debtor owned at the time of his death, but also the land which he owned when the recognizance was acknowledged or the judgment recovered, or had owned at any time since, whoever might be the owner of it when the extent was made ; and this was a right of which the creditor could not be deprived except by his own act. Conusees of statutes, in respect to their rights against the land of their conusors, had an advantage even over judgment creditors and conusees of recognizances ; for the statutes, from which the rights of the former were derived, authorized them to have all the land of their conusors extended instead of one half of it.^ Could then a judgment creditor, or a conusee of a recognizance or statute. Instead of resorting to his scire facias and execution at law against the land of his deceased judgment debtor or conusor, file a bill in equity against the owner or owners of such land? As against any one but the heir or devisee of the judgment debtor or conusor {i.e., as against any one who had acquired his title before ^ Sir W. Harbert's Case, 3 Rep. ii 3, 15a; Anon., Dyer, 271 a, pi. 25; Stileman v. Ashdown, 2 Atk. 608. 2 See Stileman v. Ashdown, supra. 8 Sir W. Harbert's Case, 3 Rep. lib, 12a.