Case ID: edw-ch_3/html/0137-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Vice-Chancellor", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Thomson v. Dudley, et. al.
    
    
      Sept. 4. 1837.
    
      Revivor. Decree.
    
    Where the principal defendant, (mortgagor,) in a foreclosure suit died after bill taken p, c., and after reference to compute amount, but before decree : it zoas held, that no decree could be had, until the suit was revived against his representatives.
    Bill to foreclose a mortgage made by the defendants Henry Dudley and Helen C. Dudley, his wife. The suit had procressed so far that the hill had heen taken as nnnfessed hv these defendants ; a reference to compute the amount due had occurred, and the cause was on the calendar upon the master’s report. But just before the day for hearing, the defendant, Henry Dudley, died.
    Mr. J. R. Lee moved for a decree ; but suggested the death of Dudley.
   The Vice-Chancellor

doubted whether he could let a decree be taken, even by allowing it nunc pro tunc; but consented to consider the point.

Afterwards, His Honor said, it would not be regular to make a decree in such a case, and so as to have effect upon a day prior to the death of the party. If the cause had been heard then, the decree might have been entered nunc pro tunc; but, that the cases of Rogers v. Paterson, 4 Paige’s C. R. 409, and Vroom v. Diimas, 5 Ib. 528, did not apply here. The, suit must he revived against the representatives of the deceased defendant, Henry Dudley, before a decree could be had. ) 
      
      ) In some late English reports, by Ross Donnelly, Esq., (Minutes of cases argued in the high court of chancery,) Mr. Edwards finds the following: “ In the course of the argument, the vice-chancellor held that where a decree was taken, and at the time of the decree a party to the suit was dead, the decree would be imperfect and could not he remedied by a subsequent bill of revivor against the representatives of the deceased party ; for the prayer of the bill of revivor was, that the suit might be put in the same plight as it was in at the time of the abatement and at that time there was no decree.” Smith v. Evans, vol. I. p. 25.