Case ID: nys_14/html/0912-01.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

Morton et al. v. Palmer.
    
      (Supreme Court, General Term, First Department.
    
    June 12, 1891.)
    Judsment—Actions on—State and Federad Courts.
    Code Civil Proc. N. Y. § 1913, providing that an action on a judgment, “rendered in a court of record of the state, cannot be maintained between the original parties to the judgment, ” except under certain circumstances, does not apply to a judgment rendered in a federal court sitting in New York, but an action may be maintained thereon as If it were a foreign judgment.
    Appeal from special term, New York county.
    Action by Levi P. Morton, George Bliss, Richard J. Cross, and George T. Bliss against Charles P. Palmer on a judgment.recovered by plaintiffs against defendant for $67,467.80, in the circuit court of the United States for the' southern district of New York. Defendant demurred to the complaint on the grounds: “First, that it appears upon the face thereof that the complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause .of action; second, that it appears on the face thereof that the court has no jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the action in that this court has' no jurisdiction of the subject-matter of an action at law on its own judgment. ” Prom an order overruling the demurrer as frivolous and directing judgment for plaintiffs, and from the judgment entered thereon, defendant appeals.
    Argued before Van Brunt, P. J., and Patterson, J.
    
      Forster & Speir, (Henry A. Forster, of counsel,) for appellant. Robinson, Bright, Biddle & Ward, for respondents.
   Van Brunt, P. J.

We see no reason for interfering with the order made by the court below. The rule is well settled that a party has a right to sue on any cause of action which he holds, and any statutory exception to that right must be definitely expressed. The only statutory restriction to which our attention has been called, and which we have been able to find, is section 1913 of the Code, which applies only to judgments rendered in a court of record in this state. This clearly has no application to a judgment recovered in the circuit court of the United States, as has been distinctly held in the case of Vulcanite Co. v. Frisselle, 22 Hun, 174. The judgment and order should be affirmed, with costs.