B. F. Hastings & Co. v. Burning Moscow Co. (1866)
The full opinion reproduced by OpenJurist was retrieved and preserved. The host is unofficial; the text is the judicial opinion, not an editorial case summary.
Facts and complete disposition
A judgment improperly required payment in gold. Under execution the judgment creditor purchased the debtor’s property for the debt. The appellate court struck the gold restriction, but the trial court refused to undo the sale. The Supreme Court reversed and directed restoration through vacation of the intermediate proceedings. Full primary opinion, unofficial reproduction.
The monetary judgment itself was valid, but the added gold-only clause was void, not merely erroneous. The court supplied two independent grounds: an execution enforcing a term the court could never lawfully impose puts buyers on notice of illegality (unless the result is precisely the same as a regular execution); and restoration remains proper where the creditor purchased and still holds the property, without injuring innocent intervening third parties. The gold-only advertised term could deter bidders or depress value; the creditor’s ability to accept other payment did not cure that public term. The separate rule that a regularly issued execution on a merely erroneous judgment can pass title despite later reversal is not immunity for void process. Full opinion.
Current-law and treatment limits
This is not a rule that every reversal voids every purchaser’s title. Distinguish void and erroneous process, creditor purchasers, innocent third parties and the available restitution. Current deadlines and procedure come from NRCP 60 and 62, not this nineteenth-century appeal. The complete opinion and current procedural rules were compared. The holding is verified within those stated limits; no comprehensive later-treatment certificate or universal modern tender rule is asserted. No later decision was identified and relied upon as treatment here.
Applies in →
nevada · equipment-and-machinery
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify current rules, the writ and intervening purchaser rights with a licensed attorney before acting.