714   INSURABLE INTEREST

therefore a specific pledge of definite property, and the mortgagee has necessarily an interest in it.

But a judgment is a general, and not a specific lien: Ruth's Appeal, 4 P. F. Smith 173. If there be personal property of the debtor, it is to be satisfied out of that. If there be not, then it is a lien on all his real estate without discrimination, and hence the plaintiff is not interested in the property as property, but only in his lien. As was said in Coover v. Black, 1 Barr 493, the judgment-creditor has neither jus in re nor ad rem, as regards the defendant's property. He has a lien, and the law gives a right to satisfaction out of the property, and that is all. For the same doctrine see Reid's Appeal, 11 Harris 476, and Conrad v. Atlantic Ins. Co., 1 Peters 384. To these might be added citations of authorities almost with-out limit.

The result of all this is, that the plaintiff having sold and conveyed the property in question before its destruction by fire, taking only a judgment for the unpaid purchase-money, had no interest in the property when it was destroyed. That the judgment, being for purchase-money, did not draw after it a specific pledge of the land, as in case of a mortgage, is shown by Ruth's Appeal, supra. Like any other judgment, it was a general lien and to be satisfied by execution of the personal property of the debtor first, and after that out of any other estate as well as that for which it was given to secure purchase-money.

This want of interest in the property was a complete answer to the plaintiff's action, and renders it unnecessary to consider other questions considered in the argument.

Judgment affirmed.

ROHRBACH v. GERMANIA FIRE INS. CO.
Court of Appeals of New York, 1875. 62 N. Y. 47, 20 Am. Rep. 451.

This was an action upon a policy of insurance, by its terms in. suring plaintiff upon "his two framed buildings" situate in the village of Jeffersonville, N. Y. Prior to the 28th June, 1868, the plaintiff had been in the employ of Margaretha Hartmann, and she was indebted to him for his labor and services. On that day they intermarried. On the thirtieth of the same month she executed and delivered to him an instrument, in writing, of the body of which the following is a copy:

"Jeffersonville, June 30th, 1868.
"I do hereby certify that I owe to John Rohrbach the sum of
seven hundred dollars; and, also, twenty-five dollars for each and
every month from the fourteenth day of July, 1863, and for every