Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Bank
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 13:07:24+00:00

Document:
'1. In actions against two or more persons, jointly indebted upon any joint obligation, contract, or liability, if the process issued against all of the defendants shall have been duly served upon either of them, the defendant so served shall answer to the plaintiff; and in such case the judgment, if rendered in favor of the plaintiff, shall be against all the defendants, in the same manner as if all had been served with process.
This statute being in force, the Michigan Insurance Bank, on the 14th of August, 1861, sued Anson Eldred, Elisha Eldred, and Uri Balcom, trading as Eldreds & Balcom, in the court of Wayne County, Michigan, as indorsers on a promissory note for $4000. On the same day a writ of attachment was issued, and the sheriff returned to it that he had attached certain property, but that he was unable to find any of the defendants in his bailiwick. Publication-notice under the laws of Michigan was given, and thereupon the defendants' appearances were entered in the Common Rule Book by the attorney of the plaintiff, under the practice of Michigan, and a declaration, to which a copy of the note sued on was annexed, filed December the 16th, 1861. The defendant, Anson Eldred, filed a plea of non-assumpsit, with notice of setoff, December 27th, 1861, and demanded a trial.
1st. As corroborative proof that the note was fraudulently made.
2d. As being a bar to recovery on this note in suit.
The plaintiffs' counsel objected to the records being received.
The court after this overruled the plaintiff's objection and admitted the record in evidence. And, in charging the jury, refused to charge them-as the defendant asked that they should be charged-that the judgment was a bar to the action on the note now sued on.
Judgment having gone accordingly for the bank, Anson Eldred brought the case here on error; the error assigned being the refusal of the court to instruct the jury that the judgment was a bar.
In the case of Mason v. Eldred,  this court announced its adherence to the general doctrine that when a judgment was recovered on a promissory note in a court of competent jurisdiction the original cause of action was merged in the judgement, and such a judgment was a bar to any future action on the note; but said that by the statute law of Michigan this effect was not given to the judgment as to parties to the note who were not served in the first suit nor had personally appeared.
In the case now before the court the question was whether, by the record of the suit in the Wayne County Court, Anson Eldred was before that court, in Michigan, when the judgment was rendered against all the defendants, so as to bind him personally as if he had been served with notice.
1. The only appearance entered by the defendant, in the Wayne County suit, was by the filing of a plea. The court, upon motion of the defendant's attorneys, permits the plea to be withdrawn. Is not that the same, in legal effect, as if the order had been that the defendant have leave to withdraw his appearance? There is no doubt that a court in which an action is pending has the right to permit a party to withdraw his appearance, and if the withdrawal is allowed, the order must be held conclusive until vacated or set aside by a proper proceeding. It cannot be reviewed in another and different action, in another court.
2. The statement of the counsel of the defendant at the time when he offered the copy of the record in evidence-and when the court made an inquiry of him whose obvious and sole purpose was to obtain a true and full knowledge of the nature of the record thus offered by him-that it was 'a suit commenced by an attachment, and that there was no personal service of process,' was a representation of such a character, and made under such circumstances, that to allow the defendant now to allege that the said record shows an appearance duly entered in the suit by the defendant, would be to impute a fraud by the learned counsel of the defendant upon the court below. It would be, in effect, permitting the defendant to allege, as a ground of reversal, a fact which he must have known was in the record when he offered it, and which fact he must have intentionally suppressed.
^1 Compiled Laws of Michigan of 1857, vol. 2, chap. 133, page 1219.
^3 Pollard & Pickett v. Dwight, 4 Cranch, 421; Farrar & Brown v. United States, 3 Peters, 459; Toland v. Sprague, 12 Id. 331; Shields v. Thomas, 18 Howard, 253; Jones v. Andrews, 10 Wallace, 327.
^4 Mason v. Eldred, 6 Wallace, 231.
^5 31 California, 346; and see Dubois v. Glaub, 52 Pennsylvania State, 242; Lodge v. The State Bank, 6 Blackford, 558; Michew v. McCoy, 3 Watts & Sergeant, 502.
^6 Vandervoort v. Smith, 2 Caines, 164; Hoyt v. Gelston, 13 Johnson, 141; Fernald v. Ladd, 4 New Hampshire, 370; Morrish v. Murray, 13 Meeson & Welsby, 52; Shutte v. Thompson, 15 Wallace, 151.

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