JUDGMENT LIEN. At common law, a judg ment is merely a general security and not a specific lien on land; 2 Sugd. Vend. *517; but by stat. 1 & 2 Viet. c. 110, it is made a charge upon all lands, tenements, etc., of which the debtor is owner or in which he is in any way interested, and it binds all persons claiming under him after such judg ment, including his issue, and other persons whom he could bar ; id. *523. By stet. 27 & 28 Viet. c. 112, judgments are not liens up on lands until such lands have been actu ally delivered in execution.
The act of congress of August 1, 1888, pro vides that judgments and decrees in the cir cuit and district court within any state shall be liens on property within such state to the same extent, etc.; as if rendered by a "court of general jurisdiction" of said state, provid ed, that when a state law requires a s ate court judgment or decree to be registered, docketed, etc., in a particular manner or in a particular office or county, before a lien shall attach, this act shall be applicable therein only when the state law shall author ize the judgments and decrees of such fed eral courts to be registered, etc., in conformi ty with the requirements relating to judg ments and decrees of state courts; in sec. 3 it is provided that nothing in the act is to require docketing of a judgment of the feder al court in any state office in the county •within which the judgment was rendered, in order that such judgment may be a lien in such county. See. 3 was repealed by act of August 17, 1912. The restriction of the lien of a judgment of a federal court sought to be imposed by a state statute was held ineffectual before the above act of August 1, 1888, but operative thereafter; Blair v. Os
trander, 109 Ia. 204, 80 N. W. 330, 77 Am. St. Rep. 532, 47 L. R. A. 469, with note giving the cases relating to the lien of judgments in the federal courts.
In New Jersey a judgment of the supreme court is a lien throughout the state. In a few of the states the lien attaches imme diately when the judgment is recovered. In others it is necessary, in order to make a judgment a lien in any county, that a tran script of the judgment be recorded.
In many states, it requires an execution to create a lien by judgment, which, in some states, must issue within a specific period after judgment, e. g. one year in Virginia, and two years in West Virginia, while in Delaware the common-law rule that an ex ecudou must issue within a year and a day is enforced by the systematic entry on the judgment docket by the prothonotary of the issue of an execution vice comes (q. v.), which is, in fact, never issued and is a fic tion in all respects except as to the prothon otary's fee.
Judgments in the federal courts have the same lien as those in the respective state courts wherein they are held, except that they extend to all lands of defendant in the district. Judgments in the circuit court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania have been decided to be liens against land in both the eastern and western dis.tricts of Penn sylvania.
The time during which a judgment lien continues in force varies in the several states from one year to twenty. Judgments are no lien in Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Arizona and Indian Territory. A verdict is a lien in Pennsylvania.