Case Name: William B. Greenlaw et al. vs. Alicia A. Kernahan
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1857-04
Citations: 4 Sneed 371
Docket Number: 
Parties: William B. Greenlaw et al. vs. Alicia A. Kernahan.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Reports
Volume: 36
Pages: 371–380

Head Matter:
William B. Greenlaw et al. vs. Alicia A. Kernahan.
1. Jurisdiction. Conflict of. Decrees and judgments of one Court, how regarded in collateral proceeding in another. The judgments and decrees of a Court of competent jurisdiction over the subject-matter and the person cannot be attacked in a collateral proceeding in another Court for irregularity. They must be taken in such proceeding as conclusive as to the rights determined, until otherwise declared by the Court of Errors.
2. Same. Same. Evidence. In an action of ejectment in the Circuit Court, it is not competent for one party to show that certain proceedings of the Chancery Court, having ample jurisdiction over the subject, and under which the adverse party claimed his title, were irregular and void.
3. Same. Same. The legal presumption is, that a Court of general jurisdiction acts correctly in all the preliminary and intermediate steps, as well as the final disposition of suits. But if the contrary should appear of record, in the opinion of any other Court where such record is proposed to be used, it would not affect the validity of the judgment or decree if the defect consisted only of irregularities and errors. Such defects may be ground of reversal, on appeal or writ of error in the same suit, but do not render the decree void, or the rights derived under it unavailing in a collateral proceeding.
4. Cases cited. Britain vs. Cowen, 6 Humph., 319; Meigs’s Dig., § 1171.
FROM SHELBY.
This was an action of ejectment, brought by the defendant in error against the plaintiffs in error in the Common Law Court at Memphis, to recover a lot of ground in that city. Upon the trial in the Court below, at the March Term, 1857, the defendants produced a transcript of a proceeding in the Chancery Court at Somerville, by which, as was alleged, the title of the plaintiff in the lot in question had been divested out of her. This proceeding of the Chancery Court at Somerville was had at a time when that Court had full jurisdiction in the premises. On the part of the plaintiff it was urged that the proceeding at Somerville, on account of the informal appointment of a guardian ad litem, was irregular and void, and of this opinion was Judge CakutheRS, who instructed the jury accordingly. There was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, from which the defendants appealed in error.
Sylvestek Bailey, for the plaintiffs in error.
This case turns upon a single question raised in the Court helow on the validity of a decree pronounced in the Chancery Court at Somerville, Tennessee.
On the trial of the cause before a jury of Shelby county, the certified transcript of a record from said Chancery Court, in which Andrew Henderson was complainant and Alicia Ann Kernahan was defendant, was produced as evidence, showing that said Kernahan had been divested of title to the lot in question, and that the title by the same decree had been vested in the said Henderson, through whom the defendants, William B. and J. 0. Greenlaw, deraigned their title, as shown in this cause.
The Court below pronounced this decree void, because a guardian ad litem to the said Alicia Ann Kernahan had not been appointed in the order of time in which the Court thought the appointment ought to have been made.
Was the Court right in this opinion ? and did it have jurisdiction to sit in judgment on the proceedings of the Chancery Court at Somerville ? or was it not usurping the jurisdiction given alone to this Honorable Court ?
At the time the Chancery Court made the decree ■which, is pronounced void by the Court at Memphis, the county of Shelby, by a statute of the State, was within the Chancery district of the Somerville Court. The defendant Alicia Ann Kernahan, a resident of the county of Shelby at the time, was regularly served with process, which was duly certified to by the sheriff of Shelby, and returned to the Chancery Court office. The lot of ground is also in the county of Shelby, so that the Chancery Court at Somerville had full jurisdiction of the person and of the subject-matter.
After acquiring this jurisdiction by statute and due process of law, this Court went on to pronounce a decree in the cause, wherein it recites that this cause came on to be heard before the Hon. Andrew McCampbell, Chancellor, upon bill, answer, replication, and proof, and that certain facts appeared to the Court, wherefore it divested the title to the lot in question out of the defendant and vested it in the complainant.
How, can a justice of the peace or a Circuit Judge of the county of Shelby, in a collateral question coming up before him, pronounce this decree a nullity ?
By law, one has as much power to do so as the other. Neither sits as a Court of Appeals, to review and reverse the errors of the Chancery Court. And either of the Courts mentioned has as full jurisdiction to pronounce the decrees of this Honorable Court a nullity as they have to sit in judgment on the decrees of the Chancery Court in such cases as those of which that Court had jurisdiction.
The Chancery Courts of this State are Courts of general jurisdiction, and their decrees, so long as they stand unreversed by this Honorable Court — the only Court in the State empowered to reverse them — import absolute verity. No other Court can go behind these decrees to revise their proceedings and question the regularity of their judicial acts.
Can a Circuit Court or a justice’s Court (for both act judicially to the extent of' their jurisdiction) go behind the decree of a Chancery Court, look into the affidavits filed in the cause, or the rules taken in the clerk’s office, to find errors wherewith to set aside the decree as a nullity?
The great principle involved in judicial proceedings has long since passed into a proverb, that “ Records can’t lie.” And what are the parts of a record in a Chancery cause ?
This Court, I believe, in a case reported in 8 Yerg., decided that such parts were records as were required to be enrolled; to wit, bills, answers, pleas, demurrers, replications, issues of fact and verdicts thereon, orders entered on the minutes, and decrees.
The final decree made by the Court having general jurisdiction over the person and the subject-matter, so long as it stands unreversed, precludes all other Courts from looking out of the record to find evidence of error in the decree.
If it should be attempted to be argued that there were erroneous steps taken in the course of the proceedings in the cause, we may well reply, 1st, You must prove this by evidence before you can call on us to answer the argument, and you cannot look behind the recitals in the decree, to the affidavits or rules in the clerk and master’s office, to establish such fact; and, 2d, If you show by the record itself that there were errors for which a higher Court would reverse on appeal, still these errors do not make a decree void.
Tbe case of Voorhies et al. vs. The BanJc of the United States is very full and clear on all these points, and is found in 10 Peters, S. 0. Rep., p. 449, et seq. See also Kilgrease vs. Blythe, 6 Humph., 378; Stephenson vs. McLean, 5 Humph., 332; 9 Peters, 8; • 6 lb., 720; 5 lb., 370 ; 2 lb., 162; 1 lb., 340; Wheaton vs. Sexton, 4 Wheaton, 506; Blaine vs. The Charles Carter, 4 Cranch, 328; act of 1837, ch. 14, § 6, p. 39; pamphlet acts.
Edwin M. Yemen, for the defendant in error.
We insist for defendant in error that the decree of the Chancery Court in the cáse of Henderson against her was not merely voidable but void.
The appointment of John Delafield as guardian ad litem, by the deputy Chancery clerk, was void, for the reasons: 1, That the. deputy had no such power. Such appointment is a judicial act, and can only be made by the Court, or by the clerk by act of Assembly; and being so, cannot be delegated.
But it is said that the act of 1837 confers the power on the deputy. I do not think so. The words of the act are as follows:
“ Sec. 6. Be it enacted, that it shall be the duty of said clerks and masters to keep a deputy at the county-seat of each county composing the district of which he is clerk and master; and said deputy shall have full power to issue process in the name of his principal, returnable in the same way, and to do all acts necessary for the convenience of parties to suits, and shall in all things have the same power which by law is conferred on deputy clerks,” etc. Acts of 1837, pp. 39, 40.
2. If the deputy had such power, still the appointment is void, for it was made before service of process on the infant. Until service of process, the infant is no party to the cause, and no step can be taken against her. 1 Swan, 484.
But it is said, although this may be true, yet the service of process afterwards, and the person before appointed continuing to act, this Court may presume that he was afterwards appointed, although such fact does not appear in the record. But this Court can make no such presumption.
It is necessary that there should be a decree of the Court, or an order of the clerk appearing on the record, of such appointment. 3 Porter’s Ala. Hep., 10; 1 Daniel’s Ch. Prae., 204.
And it is said in Kentucky that the guardian must have accepted the appointment, and that fact should appear of record. 5 J. J. Marsh., 49; 1 Daniel’s Ch. Prac., 204.
The decree in the cause was made upon bill, answer, replication, and proof taken, all being based upon the validity of the appointment of Delafield as guardian ad litem. If that be void, then the decree based on that condition of things is void also.
Then it can only be sustained on the mere ground that process was served on the infant and no other step taken, throwing out of question every thing done by the Court, assuming Delafield’s appointment to be valid. Then the decree must be void; 1st, because there was no pro oonfesso taken, and no facts are admitted, and the decree does not purport to be based upon an order pro oonfesso. 2. Because there was no proof and facts, considering the case in this light, upon which to base a decree; and unless such is the case, the decree is void, as has been held by this Court.
But again. No valid decree can be taken against an infant by default. Mills vs.'Dennis, 3 John. Ch. Rep., 368.
The proof taken in the cause, upon notice served on Delafield, cannot form the basis of a decree against the infant, Delafield having no power, and being a mere stranger in the case.
The case stands, admitting an infant to stand in the same condition as' an adult defendant, simply a decree of a Court of Chancery, going on and asserting that the cause came on t-o be heard upon the bill alone; and the Court, “being satisfied that the following facts,” etc. Such a decree must be a nullity.
ARCHIBALD WRIGHT, for the plaintiffs in error.
The judgment of the Circuit Court in this case is erroneous, and should be reversed.
The title of the defendants to the lot in controversy is valid. The decree under which they claim, and which divested title out of the plaintiff, is not void, if it be even erroneous; and it cannot be overturned or called in question in this collateral manner. 5 Humph., 313, 314, 315, 319; 6 lb., 378-391; 4 Dev. Rep., 295; 3 lb., 149-241; 3 Munf. Rep., 250; 3 Hawks’s Rep., 25 ; 6 John. Rep. 297; 2 Dev. & Batt., Law, 138; 10 Humph., 610; Ib., 9-15; 1 Swan, 75-484; 2 lb., 156; acts 1801, ch. 6, § 48, C. & N. Rev., 220; lb., 1838, ch. 176, Nich. Sup., 121; 1 Meigs’s Dig., 507, 508, 509.

Opinion:
CaRütheRS, J.,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action of ejectment, brought by the defendant in error against the plaintiffs in error for a lot in the city of Memphis. In defence, the record of a suit in the Chancery Court at Somerville in 1845, in which the title was divested out of the plaintiff, is relied upon to defeat her action. If that decree was valid, the verdict and judgment for the plaintiff below was wrong, and must be reversed ; but if it be void, as held by his Honor, then the recovery was right. This, then, is the only question in the case. The grounds upon which that decree was held to be void, are: 1. That the infant had no guardian properly appointed to defend for her, or, rather, that Dela-field, who acted in that capacity, had no authority to do so, because, first, he was appointed ten or eleven days before service of process upon the infant, and, second, the appointment was made by the deputy clerk and master. Such are the facts upon the record, and the question is, do they render the decree void ?
That the Court had jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the infant, as she was served with process personally, is not controverted; nor is the correctness of the decree against her upon the merits brought in question.
It is certainly the correct practice to have an infant party defendant, who has no regular guardian, in Court by the service and return of process, before a guardian ad litem is appointed. Until that is done, the infant is not properly a party, nor is the attention of friends drawn to' the suit, so that the interest of the minor would have the protection of their watchful care, which is the principal object of requiring the personal service of process upon infants. The appointment, then, of Delafield was irregular and premature, the infant not then being a party in Court. But he was notified of his appointment, accepted it, and appeared in Court after the infant became a party by service, and assumed the trust assigned him as guardian. Conceding, then, that his appointment was irregular, and that the deputy clerk transcended his authority in making it, (if such he the fact, as to which no opinion is given,) is the decree rendered void thereby ? Proceedings in suits may he very irregular, and easily reversible in a Court of Errors, and yet not void, and consequently invulnerable to collateral attack.
It is well remarked by the Court in Britain vs. Oowen, 5 Humph., 319, that "we have strong motives of public policy to cherish substance more than forms, and to hesitate long, and insist upon a clear case, before we pronounce the decrees and judgments of our Courts of record void, when brought collaterally in question."
Every consideration of public policy and individual security requires, where a Court of record acts upon and settles the rights of men, in cases where there is jurisdiction of the subject and person, that all may repose in safety and quiet upon such rights.
A Court of general jurisdiction is presumed to act correctly and upon sufficient grounds in all the intermediate steps as well as final determination of suits. But if the contrary should appear of record, (in the opinion of any other Court before which the record is proposed to he used,) it would not affect the validity of the judgment or decree if the defect consisted only of irregularities and errors. Such defects may he grounds of reversal on appeal or writ of error in the same suit, hut do not render the decree void, or the rights derived under it unavailing.
A Court before which the records of another, having jurisdiction, are used, cannot review the proceedings to spy out irregularities that may have intervened, or erroneous orders that may have been made, or wrong conclusions arrived at. This is the province of a Court of revision, and no other ean notice their existence. As to all rights and interests arising under such judgments or decrees, they are as good and effectual as if such errors did not exist. If this were not so, every Court in which it might become necessary to use or rely upon a record from another, would become a Court of Errors, and there would be no certainty in titles or rights grounded on this, the highest of all assurances.
Whether, then, the Chancery Court at Somerville erred in the recognition of Helafield as guardian ad litem or not, or heard the cause without an order pro confesso, or decreed it without any proof, or upon proof illegally taken, are matters which cannot now be inquired into, as they do not avoid the decree. It is enough that the Court had jurisdiction of the subject and the party, to make the decree valid when it is brought in question collaterally. In 2 Meigs's Dig., § 1171, the rule is correctly stated, and authorities cited.
His Honor therefore erred in rejecting this record or pronouncing it void, and the " judgment must be reversed, and a new trial granted.