Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/365

 IN EE LAWBENCE. 353 �Burplusage. A survivor of a firm holds the title io a chose in action to which he survives as absolutely and individually as if he had bought it. This judgment and the docketing of it have, therefore, the same effect, as is if the description of the judgment debtors as survivors had been omitted. �It is next objected that the firm was insolvent at the time the judgment was docketed, as shown by the general assign- ment executed four days before; that in such a case the real estate of the firm, as this was, is required to pay the firm debts, and is, in equity, personalty, and therefore, as the judgment lien is only on the actual existing interest of the judgment debtors in the land, neither of these judgment debtors individually had any interest which a creditor could take on execution, or to which the statute lien would attach. The general principle here invoked against these petitioners, that in equity the real estate of a firm is, for some purposes, treated as personalty, and that an individual creditor of one of the partners gets a lien by his judgment on the interest of his debtor in the land, subject to the equitable rights of the copartners against the same for the payment of the partner- ship debts, is not controverted. If, therefore, this were a judgment against one or several of the partners, less than ail, and not against them ail, and upon a firm debt, there might be ground for the objection. But the claim sued on was an alleged chose in action belonging to the firm. The judgment recovered is clearly an obligation of the firm. The property on which the lien is claimed was the property of the firm. The legal title to the property was in the judg- ment debtors individually, and is subject to the lien, unless the superior equity of some other party or parties prevents the attaching of the lien for the protection of such superior equity. �In the case of a judgment on an individual debt against one partner, that which prevents the attaching of the lien accord- ing to the legal title is such a superior equity of his copart- ners to have the land devoted to the payment of the partner- ship debts rather than to the debts of one of the partners. In this case the copartners have no such superior equities to be �T.5,no.4— 23 ����