Case ID: ohio_3/html/0011-01.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

Hunt and others v. Yeatman.
    Judgment irregularly entered may be set aside at a subsequent term.
    This was a writ of error, to the city court of the city of Cincinnati, adjourned for decision here by the Supreme Court of Hamilton county. The case was this: The plaintiffs in error,, prosecuted a scire facias, upon a mortgage against the defendant, in the city court, to March term, 1822, and at the same term, a judgment was entered up against the defendant. At a subsequent term, upon the motion oí the defendant, the judgment entered against him was set aside, and the cause continued. In 1824, the case was put to a jury, and the plaintiffs’ evidence being overruled by the court, they suffered a nonsuit. This writ of error was brought to reverse the judgment, or order, setting aside the judgment originally given for the plaintiff.
    N. Wright, for plaintiffs in error, insisted:
    There was error in setting aside the first judgment entered for plaintiffs in the city court.
    *The judgment set aside was rendered in term time, was the act of the court, and the matter was res adjudicata, and could not be disturbed at a subsequent term. He cited 7 Cranch, 1; 3 Wheat. 591; 1 Hen. & Mun. 25; 2 Hen. & Mun. 467; 1 Ohio, 375.
    Storer, for defendant in error,
    argued that judgments, irregularly and improperly entered, might' be set aside at a subsequent term, whether entered in term time or not, and that reasons for-setting them aside, being addressed to the discretion of the court, could only be revised by the facts appearing in a bill of exceptions. He cited 2 Caine’s Cases, 45; 1 Johns. 531, note; 2 Johns. Cases, 226; 3 Johns. 256; 6 Johns. 129; 9 Johns. 256.
   By the Court:

The power to set aside a judgment, .for manifest irregularity in entering it, is exercised by all courts of justice. And this power is exercised, not merely at the term in which this judgment is. rendered, but at a subsequent term. To alter or amend a judgment, otherwise regularly entered, is a very different thing from. setting it totally aside for irregularity. The majority of the court entertain no doubt, that the city court might, in a proper case, set aside a judgment entered at a previous term. Whether they erred in the particular case before them can not be ascertained. As they acted upon matter in pais and not upon matter of record, and no bill of exceptions was taken, we can not go further than to decide upon the general power. We see no cause for reversing the judgment, and it must be affirmed.

Judge Burnet dissented.