Case ID: how-pr_3/html/0337-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Bronson, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

COURT OF APPEALS,
    SEPTEMBER TERM, 1848.
    Lyman A. Spalding, Appellant, vs. Kingsland & Kingsland.
    Where the chancellor, on the 23d of June last, denied a motion to vacate a final decree, which liad been entered by default, and a further motion, (if the first should be granted,) to open the order closing the proofs; held, that the order was not one from which an appeal would lie; it was a question of practice addressed to the discretion of the chancellor.
    The appeal in this case having been taken on the 11th of July, in the mode prescribed by the ■ Code of Procedure, held, that it should have been taken in the form prescribed by the old law. That the right to appeal, as well as the mode of proceeding, depended upon that law. (Mayor of New York v. Schermerhorn, ante, page 334.)
    S. Stevens and 1ST. Hill, Jr., for the respondents, moved to dismiss the appeal. The chancellor, on the 23d of June last, denied the appellant’s motion to vacate a final decree which had been entered against him by default, and a further motion (if the first should be granted,) to open the order closing the proofs. Notice of the order denying the motions was served on the 29th of June, and the appeal was taken on the 11th of July. The appeal was taken in the mode prescribed by the Code of Procedure, and not in accordance with the old law.
    A. Taber, for the Appellant.
    
   Bronson, J.

The 271st section of the Code of Procedure, which abolishes the old, and gives a new mode of .review, did not at the first apply to any adjudication in actions commenced before the first of July, when the code took effect. (§ 8, 391.) But it was subsequently applied to proceedings after the first of July, in suits which were pending before and on that day. (Supp. Code, § 2, 18.) The suit in which this order was made was not pending on the first day of July: it had been disposed of by a final decree before that time. And further, there has been no proceeding in the suit since the first of July: the order appealed from was made before that day. The appeal should have been in the form prescribed by the old law, the code having nothing to -do with the case. (Mayor of New York v. Schermerhorn, ante, page 334.)

There is a further, and equally fatal objection, that the order was not one from which an appeal would lie. It was a question of practice addressed to the discretion of the chancellor. (Fort v. Bard, 1 Comst. 43.) The right to appeal, as well as the mode of proceeding, depended on the old law.- Appeal dismissed.