Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/430

 OCTOBER T,RM, 1907. __&d!,, are alike applicable to municipal corporations as to individuais, and to permit the city to escape the payment of judgments, whcee validity is not otherwise questioned, for failure to issue execution or' sue out a writ of mnd,,mus dur- ing the tkue when the action of the city office was such as to prevent the exercise of the fight, would be to permit the action of the representatives of the city, who have had the benefit of the contract during the time both parties were ob- eerving its obligations, to work a grces injustice upon the cred- itors heldhg valid judgments against the muaicpalty. We have been referred to no case precisely in point. Anal- ogens cases are not altogether wanting. In Mercant// Trust Co. v. 3t. L. & 3. F. Rull., 69 Fed. Pep. 193, it was held that a stay of execution in the record prevented the judgment be- coming dorm,nt. In Mars{/2 v. M/nter, 43 Mii_ippi, 678, it was held that the statute did not run during the time an injunction was in force, sued out by the adverse party and afterwards dissolved. It is not argued at the bar in this ce that the arrangement with the judgment creditors was void for want of powcr in the municipality to make the arrangement of December, 1901, and we fall to see any valid reason why the municipality might not enter into this arrangement. It was permitted by law to make an annual levy of five  on the dollar. 1 Wilson's Statutes, 1903, �6. If the judgment creditors and the municipaBty saw fit to make an angement by which the amount of this annual levy might be distributed by the con- sent of the creditors among them in accorclance with the priority of their judgments, we perceive no reason why this may not be legally done. The effect of this arrangement was to prevent the judgment creditor from taking such step as the law permitted to collect his judgment, and, upon princi- city to carry out such an arrangement during nearly all the five years' period, and then meet its obligation by a plea of the statute of limitations upon the ground. that the judgments

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