Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/426

 414 FBDBBAL REPORTER. �The deed from S. B. Poole to William B. Poole having been executed and recorded long before the levies, the grantee thereby acquired a better title to the premises than did the govemment by its levies, unless this deed can be shown to have been frandulent. The govemment, by its levies, is in a position to attack the validity of this conveyance, if it elects so to do ; bat since the levies were made the property bas very greatly diminished in value — the buildings thereon hav- ing been consumed by fire — and it prefers to abandon its levies and revive its iudgments, if possible, for their full amount, with interest, and then satisfy them by levies on other property of this defendant. �It is provided by the Eevised Statutes of Maine, c. 76, § 17, that "a creditor who has received seizin of a levy not re- corded cannot waive it, unless the estate -was not the property of the debtor, or not liable to seiznre on execution, or cannot be held by the levy, when it may be oonsidered void, and he may resort to any other remedy for the satisfaction of bis judgment." By section 18 : "When the execution has been recorded, and the estate levied on does not pass by the levy for causes named in the preceding section, the creditor may sue out of the office of the olerk issuing the execution a writ of scire faciaa, requiring the debtor to show cause why an alias execution should not be issued on the same judgment; and if the debtor, after being duly summoned, does not show sufScient cause, the levy may be set aside, and an alias exe- cution issued for the amount then due on the judgment, unless, during its pendency, the debtor tenders in court a deëd of release of the land levied on, and makes it appear that the land, at the time of the levy, was and still is his property, and pays the expenses of the levy, and the taxable costs of suit; and the judgment shall be satisfied for the amount of the levy." �The present suit is instituted under these provisions. The answer of the defendant is that the judgments have' been fully satisfied from his estates, and with the answer he files in court' a release to the United States of ail right, title, and iuteresf in the lands levied on. The burden is upon defend- ����