Case ID: mass_14/html/0201-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ebenezer Hawes, Plaintiff in Error, versus Elisha Hathaway.
    A judgment in an action of debt, brought upon a former judgment which was erroneous, cannot be reversed for the error in the former judgment.
    Error upon a judgment rendered in the Circuit Court of Common Elens for the county of Bristol, in which the said Hathaway was plaintiff and the said Hawes defendant.
    
      It appeared that an action was first sued by Hathaway before a justice of the peace, and that judgment was rendered on the return day of the writ, without any adjournment or continuance of the action, although Hawes was out of the commonwealth from the service of the writ until after the said judgment was so rendered' against him, and had no agent or attorney within the commonwealth, nor any notice of the said suit. Afterwards Hathaway brought an action of debt upon the said last-mentioned judgment, before the same justice of the peace; and judgment being again rendered against Hawes, he appealed to the Circuit Court of Common Pleas, where, after a continuance, Hathaway recovered the judgment, to reverse which the present writ of error was brought; and the foregoing facts were relied on, as showing the last judgment erroneous.
   By the Court.

The second judgment before the justice of the peace well supports the judgment of the Common Pleas, which is complained of, and which * cannot therefore be reversed. And the second judgment before the justice is maintained by the first, which is valid until reversed. The course to be taken is first to obtain a reversal of the original judgment by writ of error; and the plaintiff in error may then apply for a review of the action, in which the Common Pleas rendered the judgment, brought before us by this process. There is at present no ground shown on which that judgment can be reversed.

Nye for the plaintiff in error.

J M. Williams for the defendant in error.

Judgment affirmed, 
      
      
        .) [Lazell vs. Miller, 15 Mass. Rep. 207. — Ed.]