Vermeule v. York Water Co. (1914)

Decision: December 10, 1914; Cornish, J.; exceptions overruled; equity decree directed. Full opinion, reporter pp. 437–442, read in the official Maine Reports scan.

Facts and holding

The creditor purchased an entire water system at execution sale: land, pumping facilities, tools, materials, pipes, franchises and other rights. The sheriff used a special aqueduct-corporation personal-property procedure although the debtor was organized under general corporation law and the assets required the applicable distinct procedures.

The debtor recovered the property and obtained a rents/profits award. In the creditor-purchaser’s subsequent proceedings, the Court rejected treating the purported personalty/franchise portions as a valid sale separable from the land. The system was an indivisible operating unit; the procedural failure defeated title to the whole. The original judgment was wholly unsatisfied and renewed execution was available. The rents/profits judgment could be enforced by offset, not otherwise. Full opinion.

Limits and later treatment

This is a genuine mixed business-asset sale, not a holding that every movable item becomes real estate or that every advertisement defect defeats purchaser title. It does demonstrate why an officer’s sale power under the wrong statutory channel cannot be assumed to convey a business system. No later opinion establishing the full modern reach of this particular holding was retrieved; historical procedural and execution-remedy language is not certified as the current practice.

Applies in

maine · businesses-and-going-concerns

Disclaimer. Legal information, not legal advice. This decision applies historical statutes to its specific facts; verify current law and later treatment.