Case ID: miss_11/html/0423-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

NOVEMBER TERM, 1844.
    Parmenias Briscoe, et al. v. The President, Directors and Company of the Planters Bank of the State of Mississippi.
    A writ of error issued by the clerk of the Circuit Court, under the Act of 1837 (How. & Hutch. 541), is subject to the statute of limitations requiring writs of error to be sued out within three years from the rendition of the judgment sought to be revised.
    In error from the Claiborne Circuit Court.
    Suit was instituted in the Court below, upon a promissory note made by the plaintiffs in error, and a judgment by default final was rendered there on the 8th day of December, 1838.
    On the 6th day of March, 1843, a writ' of error was sued out by the plaintiffs in error from before the clerk of the Claiborne Circuit Court, and was executed on the 10th.of March, 1843. .
    The record was filed in this Court on the’ 4th of July, 1843, when the defendant in error appeared and filed the following plea in bar :
    “ The said defendant in error comes and says, = that the plaintiffs in error ought not to have or maintain their writ of error aforesaid, because they say that the said writ of error was not -issued within three years from the rendition of the judgment therein sought to be reversed ; and this the said defendant in error is ready to verify, &c., and therefore they pray judgment, &c. Maury and Sayer, for defendants in error.”
    To this plea the plaintiffs in error responded, that the statute of limitations, regulating the issuance of writs of error, did not apply to such writs when issued by the circuit clerks, under the statute of L837 ; and upon this issue the cause was submitted to the Court.
    
      Montgomery and Boyd, for the defendant in error, in behalf of the plea,
    cited and relied on the act of the legislature (How. & Hutch. 540, sec. 47) on the subject of writs of error; which act, while it allows writs of error as a matter of right, contains the following proviso : “ Provided, That no writ of error shall issue, unless within three years from the rendition of the judgment or decree sought to be reversed.”
    
      Thrasher and Sillers, for plaintiffs in error.
    The defendant in error pleads in bar the statute of limitation of three years to writ of error. See How. & Hutch. 540, sec. 47. This limitation of three years is interposed by the act of 1830, which gives the writ of error as a writ of right, upon filing in the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court a transcript of the record. In such case, the clerk of the Supreme Court was directed to issue the writ.
    By the act of 13th May, 1837, however, the limitation of three years is repealed by implication, and the law entirely changed ; or, in other words, an entirely new law is enacted on the subject, directing the clerk of the Circuit Court to issue the writ, as a writ of right, in all coming time, without limitation. The language of the statute is, that, “hereafter, when any party, plaintiff or defendant, to.any judgment or decree, rendered in any Court in this State, shall desire to have such judgment or decree revised by the High Court of Errors and Appeals,’ he, she or they, may apply by petition to the clerk” of the Circuit Court, who is directed to issue the writ, without limitation. How. & Hutch. 540, sec. 50.
    The judgment of the Court, against a party not in Court, is a judgment without jurisdiction ; and, if a Court render a judgment when it has not jurisdiction of the parties, the judgment is void, and it cannot be made good by the lapse of time, or the statute of limitation.
   Per Curiam.

The only question presented in this cause, is, whether a writ of error, issued by the clerk of the Circuit Court, under the act of 1837, is subject to the statute of limitations of three .years. We see no reason to doubt that it is. Plow. & Hutch. 540, sec. 47. In this case, the writ of error not having been sued out within three years of the rendition of the judgment in the Circuit Court, it must, for that reason, be dismissed. <