Case ID: ohio_3/html/0285-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Anthony Weyer, late Sheriff of Belmont County, v. Samuel Zane.
    Judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, though rendered in a form of proceeding not known to our practice, and apparently without service of process or notice on the defendant, can not he treated as a nullity whilst unreversed.
    This was a scire facias, to revive and have execution of a judgment recovered by the plaintiff, against the defendant, in the court of common pleas of Belmont county, at December term, 1813. The scire facias recited, that at the December term, 1813, a judgment was recovered against Anthony Weyer, then sheriff of Belmont county, upon a motion to amerce, at the suit of Sterling Johnson, for not.collecting and paying the amount of an execution put into his hands, at the suit of Johnson v. Zane. The scire facias then proceeded to recite, that at the same term the said sheriff “ obtained a judgment against Samuel Zane and Elisha Woods, the substance of which judgment is as follows, to wit: Upon a forthcoming bond, for the delivery of property to satisfy an execution against Samuel Zane, in favor of Sterling Johnson, for the sum of two hundred and fifty-four dollars and seventy-nine cents, with interest from August 19, 1813. And on motion of the plaintiff by his attorney, and it appearing to the court, that the plaintiff had this day been amerced in consequence of the defendants failing to deliver the property they had bound themselves to do, to satisfy the execution aforesaid, whereupon it is ordered and ^adjudged by the court, that the plaintiff recover of the defendants the sum of five hundred and ten dollars, in damages, and his costs about his suit expended, which judgment is this day rendered for the plaintiff’s security, in consequence of being amerced, and is to be satisfied by the payment of the sum the plaintiff is amerced in.” The scire facias proceeded to suggest, that Woods was deceased, and that the amount of the judgment on amercement v. Weyer remained unpaid, and prayed that Zane might be summoned, to show cause why the judgment should not be revived and execution had against him.
    The defendant demurred generally to the scire facias, and pleaded other pleas. In the court of common pleas, judgment was given for the defendant. The plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court, and the case was adjourned here upon the question on the demurrer alone.
    No argument was submitted on either side.
   By the Court :

The demurrer assumes that the judgment set forth in the scire facias is so utterly irregular as to be absolutely void and of no effect. We can not adopt this opinion. The court that rendered it was a court of competent jurisdiction over both parties and subject. However summary their proceedings, or however irregular, the solemn judgment of a competent and authorized tribunal can not be treated as a nullity. There is an explicit and formal judgment, and, although the proceedings upon which it is predicated, may be unknown to our jurisprudence, still, as in all other judgments, they are not open for inquiry, except in regular mode of reinvestigation on writ of error or certiorari. It is seldom that the error complained of, is, in the manner of rendering the judgment itself. Generally, it is founded on some of the intermediato matters, for mistake in which it is supposed that the judgment stands upon an incorrect conclusion, with respect to facts or principles. There is no substantial distinction between this and other cases that we can perceive. The demurrer must be overruled and the cause remanded for hearing on the pleas.