Case ID: ny-st-rep_51/html/0802-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Van Brunt, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Mart Ann Robinson, Pl’ff, v. Robert Govers, Ex’r, et al., App’lts.
    
      (Supreme Court, General Term, First Department,
    
    
      Filed February 17, 1893.)
    
    Abatement and bevivor — Dower—Death op plaintipf — Memorandum op DECISION.
    A memorandum of decision of a motion to confirm the report of a referee in an action to recover dower, and directing the form of the order to be entered, not signed by the judge, is not a final judgment which will prevent the action from abating by the death of the plaintiff.
    Reargument of appeal from order granting leave to plaintiff’s executor to continue the action.
    
      Gratz Nathan, John C. Shaw and James E. Carpenter (G. Nathan, of counsel), for app’lts; John B. Pine (A. G. Fox, of counsel), for resp’t.
   Van Brunt, P. J.

Upon the previous argument of this appeal the court held that the order continuing the action should be reversed, upon the ground that by the death of the plaintiff the same abated, and it is not necessary to rediscuss the questions then considered and determined. But since said argument and decision a motion has been made to resettle the order confirming the referee’s report herein by inserting the following" recital therein before the operative part of the order:

“And a decision having been rendered herein by Mr. Justice Patterson on the 15th of February, 1892, in the words and figures following, to wit: The motion to confirm the report of the referee is granted, with the modifications hereafter suggested. The plaintiff should be allowed the costs of the action,, and an extra allowance of $150. Costs should not be awarded, the defendant, but the guardian ad litem should be compensated,, and fifty-five dollars is allowed him. These costs and allowances are not to be charged against the gross sum awarded to> the plaintiff, but in the same manner as if the property were sold. The defendants desiring to pay this gross sum must first-pay these costs, and then deduct them from the whole value of the property as fixed by the referee, and the dower interest may then be calculated, for the purposes of final judgment, on the balance remaining after such deduction is made. That seems to he the rule in cases in which the property is sold, and the proceeds brought into court, Schierloh v. Schierloh, 14 Hun, 572, and it may equitably be made applicable in a case of this kind.’ ”

The question presented is, the plaintiff having died subsequent to the filing of this memorandum by the court who heard the motion, and before its embodiment in an order, whether the situation has been in any respects changed from that which was presented by the record on the previous appeal. We think not. The memorandum in question was not the judgment of the court. It was simply an indication to the parties as to how the judgment to be entered upon the referee’s report should be framed, in order that it might be duly entered. This is apparent, if any indication was needed, from the language of the memorandum itself. It is that the plaintiff should be allowed certain things, that costs should be allowed to the defendant, that the guardian ad litem should be compensated, that the costs and allowances should not be charged, etc., clearly showing that the court, by the filing of this memorandum, which does not purport even to have been signed by the justice, was merely giving an indication as to how the order upon the motion should be framed; and, when the suggestions of the court were properly embodied in an order, then it directed its entry, which was the fact, because three days after-wards we find a formal order, entered by direction of the court, embodying the suggestions of tho memorandum. This memorandum, clearly, was not a final judgment which prevented the action from abating by the death of the plaintiff. The case of Knapp v. Roche, 82 N. Y., 366, holds that the memorandum of a decision handed down by the general term, although signed by one of the judges, was not a judgment, but it was a mere authority to enter a judgment; that a formal judgment must be prepared, entered in the judgment book, and attested by the clerk’s signature, and a copy thereof annexed to the appeal papers, to constitute the judgment roll in accordance with the provisions of the Code. So in the case at bar the memorandum in question was not an order. It did not pretend to be an order. It was a mere memorandum determining what should be the form of the order to be entered upon the motion in reference to the referee’s report. We think, therefore, that the position of the case remains unchanged ; and, for the reasons stated in the opinion previously given upon the original appeal, the order appealed from should be reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and the motion denied, with ten dollars costs.

O’Brien and Follett, JJ., concur. 
      
       See 48 St. Rep., 861.