Case Name: Samuel Reynolds v. John S. Stansbury and James K. Burch
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1851-12
Citations: 20 Ohio 344
Docket Number: 
Parties: *Samuel Reynolds v. John S. Stansbury and James K. Burch.
Judges: 
Reporter: Cases decided in the supreme court of ohio : upon the circuit at the special sessions in Columbus
Volume: 20
Pages: 291–305

Head Matter:
*Samuel Reynolds v. John S. Stansbury and James K. Burch.
The record of a judgment of a former recovery may be given in evidence under the general issue in assumpsit, without notice.
It is competent for a court to set aside a judgment of a previous term for irregularity on motion; and although the court, in the exercise of such power, may act erroneously, such error will not render the proceeding void, so that the record can be collaterally impeached.
"When one party to a judgment moves to set it aside at a subsequent term to that in which it was entered, it is necessary to give the court jurisdiction that the opposite party should have notice.
In favor of the judgment or proceedings of a court of general jurisdiction, it will be presumed that the court had jurisdiction of the person of the defendant, although that fact may not affirmatively appear on the record.
Error to the commercial court of Cincinnati.
*In the court below, the action was assumpsit. Eeynolds,. the plaintiff below (and plaintiff in error) declared in the common counts.
The facts, so far as material, are stated in the opinion of the court.
After verdict for defendants in the court below, a motion for new trial' was overruled.
The record of the proceeding in the superior court of Cincinnati, setting aside the judgment in said court rendered at January term, 1847, for $410.97 in favor of Samuel Eeynolds against John S. Stansbury, is as follows:
“State of Ohio, Hamilton county, ss. Superior court of Cincinnati. Samuel Eeynolds v. John S. Stansbury. Judgment, January term, 1847. Damages $410.97, and for costs $5.89.
“ On motion of plaintiff, it is ordered that this judgment be set aside at plaintiff’s costs, and plaintiff has leave to take the bill of exchange from the files.”
The judgment thus set aside was taken on a declaration containing a single common count, for money had and received. The precipe was indorsed “ suit brought for money had and received,” and to recover on the bill of exchange afterward withdrawn under said order.
This bill of exchange is the same one mentioned in the opinion of the court, and was drawn by the plaintiff and one Hiram Bond, on, and accepted by defendant Stansbury.
Coffin & Mitchell, for plaintiffs :
The plaintiff asked, among others, the following instructions to the jury :
“1. That in the case of Eeynolds against Stansbury, in the superior court of Cincinnati, the plaintiff could not recover, *upon the pleadings, for tobacco sold by Eeynolds to Stans-bury;” which the court refused to give.
“ 2. That this case being brought, and the plaintiff seeking to recover for the price and value of tobacco sold by Eeynolds to the defendants, the case of Eeynolds against Stansbury, in the superior court of Cincinnati, is not a bar to this suit, and if the jury are satisfied that the defendants were partners, and the plaintiff sold the tobacco while they were partners, the plaintiff is entitled to recover for the amount due;” which the court refused to give, and instructed and charged the jury that the “judgment in the superior court of Cincinnati, in favor of plaintiff against said Stansbury, igr a bar to the plaintiff’s recovery in this suit.”
We appear for the plaintiff and claim :
I. That the court erred in admitting in evidence the copy of the record of the judgment in the superior court, and the parol proof that the cause of action in this case, and the one mentioned in that record, were the same ; because—
1. A former recovery can not be given in evidence under the general issue, without notice. Inman v. Jenkins, 3 Ohio, 271.
2. The declaration in the case in the superior court was for money had and received ; the present action is brought to recover the price and value of tobacco; and the offer to prove by parol, that the cause of action was the same, would contradict the record. 1 Greenl. Ev. 532.
LI. The the court erred in charging that the judgment in the superior court was a bar to the recovery in this suit. Piercem Kearney, 5 Hill, 85 ; Naughten v. Patridge, 11 Ohio, 232 ; 3 Johns. Cases, 72, n. a, 2 ed.; Brazee v. Payntz, 3 B. Mon. 178; Watson v. Olvon, 1 Rich. 111.
III. That the court erred in rejecting the record offered by the plaintiff, showing that the judgment in the superior court had been set aside, and in refusing to permit the plaintiff to prove that fact.
The ruling of the court below, on this point, can not be sustained, ^unless this court is willing to decide that a court of general jurisdiction has no power, for any cause whatever, on motion, at a subsequent term to the rendition of a judgment, to set aside that judgment. This power,, and the exercise of it, by motion, is fully recognized in the English and American courts, and is indispensable to the administration of justice. In the language of Judge Sherman, repeated by Judge Wood, and recognized by Judge Hitchcock, it has long since become one of the plain and accustomed remedies of a court of law. Hunt v. Yeat-man, 3 Ohio, 15; Critchfield v. Porter, 3 Ohio, 518; McKee v. Bank of Mount Pleasant, 7 Ohio, 175, 187, pt. 2; Sloo v. Lea, 18 Ohio, 307; Shelton v. Gill, 11 Ohio, 419; Hitchcock, C. J., in Abernathy v. Latimore, 19 Ohio, 288; De Medina v. Grove, 59 E. C. L. 170.
For the purposes of jurisdiction all parties properly in court at the commencement of the case l’emain so until satisfaction of the judgment is had and entered of record.
It is unnecessary to discuss the question whether notice to the other party was or was not necessary. The superior court is a court of general jurisdiction : if it had the power, upon notice to the other party, and for good cause shown, to set aside the judgment, then there was error in the ruling of the commercial court.
The legal presumption is that every step which it was necessary to take for the legal and proper exercise of that power by the superior court was duly taken before the power was exercised. The action of the superior court can not be impeached collaterally. Until reversed, or set aside, the order vacating the judgment remains, and there is no judgment in force. Robertson v. Smith, 18 Johns. 459; Sloo v. Lea, 18 Ohio, 307.
T. Walker, for defendants :
The questions of law arise .upon the following points :
I. Defendants, under the general issue, offered the record of *a former recovery by the plaintiff in the superior court against Stansbury alone, for the same cause of action, as proved by parol, to which the plaintiff excepted. But the court admitted the record ; and we insist that it was rightly done, and was a bar. See 1 Greenleaf’s Ev., sec. 531; 3 Cowen & Hill’s Notes to Phillips on Ev. 838; Henderson v. Reeves, 6 Blackford, 101. Indeed, although there was an early decision on the circuit to the contrary (see Inman v. Jenkins, 3 Ohio, 271), yet we understand the practice has for years been settled throughout the state to receive such evidence under the general issue.
II. But plaintiff then offered the record of an ex parte order of the superior court, at a subsequent term, setting aside the judg-ment, which was regular upon its face, on motion of plaintiff, without any notice given or reasons assigned, to which the defendants objected, and the court sustained the objection. We insist that the court was right.
When a judgment has once been regularly entered, and the term expired, it has passed from the control of that court, and become a fixed thing. A higher court may reverse it, or it may be impeached for fraud; but in no other way can it cease to be a judgment.
There was no reason assigned or notice given. It was purely an ex parte proceeding. This, indeed, makes no difference, except to exhibit more strikingly its anomalous character. For in Brackenridge v. McCulloch, 7 Blackford, 334, a case almost identical-with this, it was held that the judgment could not be vacated even by scire facias, when there must be both notice and cause shown.
And the doctrine is carried still further in Assignees of Medford v. Dorsey, 2 Wash. C. C. 433.
In Bodkin v. Commissioners of Pickaway, 1 Ohio, 375, it was held that a final judgment could not even be amended at a subsequent term, except in matter of form. We doubt the propriety of even this exception.
In Reed v. Hatcher, 1 Bibb, 346, the same doctrine was *held as in the cases from Blackford and Washington. See also 6 Howard’s Miss. 114; 1 Smedes & Marshall, 391.
Inman v. Jenkins, 3 Ohio, 271, overruled.
As to entering, setting aside and amending judgments and orders, and entering them nunc pro tunc, see note to Swan’s Rev. Stat. 674, 496; Statute of Amendments, Swan’s Rev. Stat. 687,688, and decisions referred to in argument in Waggoner v. Dubois, 19 Ohio, 88, 104; Hanly v. Levin, 5 Ohio, 239; U. S. Bank v. Moss et al., 6 Howard’s U. S. 38.
As to conclusiveness of proceedings of courts, impeaching collaterally, etc., see an article in West. Law Journal, 1850, 1851, p. 365; Wilcox’s Dig. 342; Id. Sup. 84; Note to Swan’s Rev. Stat. 12, 89, 92; Robb v. Irwin, 15 Ohio, 689; Paine’s Lessee v. Morland, 16 Ohio, 435; Lewis v. Lewis’ Administratrix, 15 Ohio, 715; Boswell v. Sharp, 15 Ohio, 447, commented on, 5 West. Law Journal, 35; same cause of action, in Boswell v. Dickerson, 4 McLean, 262, taken to Supreme Court of the United States, and decided in that court; Douglass v. Massie, 16 Ohio, 273; Lessee of Cochran v. Loring, 17 Ohio, 409; Morgan’s Lessee v. Barnet, 18 Ohio, 535; Newman’s Lessee v. Cincinnati, 18 Ohio, 323; Snively v. Low, 18 Ohio, 368, modifying Adams v. Jeffries, 12 Ohio, 253, 271. See Hambleton v. Dempsey & Co., and Cotterell v. Long, reported in this volume; and see Kemp v. Kennedy, 1 Pet. Cond. 30; Shivers v. Wilson et al., Har. & Johns. 130; Walker v. Turner, 6 Pet. Cond. 668; Ross v. McClung, 6 Pet. 288 ; Williams v. Blount, 2 Mass. 213 ; 2 Ohio, 229; 4 Ohio, 149; 16 Ohio, 479; Harper v. L. and O. R., 2 Dana, 227; 1 Greenl. Ev., sec. 547, n.; 10 Ohio, 277, n.; Swan’s Prac. 378. See Lessee of Maxom v. Sawyer 12 Ohio, 201; 9 Ohio, 19; 11 Ohio, 443; 2 Ohio, 401.
The reversal of a judgment does not affect title of purchaser. Act of March 1, 1831, regulating judgments and executions, sec. 22, Stat. 479; Hubbell v. Broadwell, 8 Ohio, 120; and see act of March 2, 1846, for the protection of purchasers at judicial sales, 44 Ohio L. 114.

Opinion:
Caldwell, J.
The proceeding in the commercial court of' Cincinnati was an action of assumpsit, brought by Reynolds to recover the price of a quantity of tobacco, which he claimed to have sold to the defendants, Stansbury & Burch, as partners. The defendants plead the general issue, and claimed that no partnership existed between them, and that Burch had nothing whatever to do in the pmrchase of the tobacco. The plaintiff having offered evidence for the purpose of proving the sale of the tobacco, and tending to prove the partnership of defendants, gave in evidence a bill of exchange for $487.77, dated March 13, 1846, drawn upon and accepted by the defendant Stansbury, which bill was claimed to have been given for the tobacco.
The defendants then offered in evidence a copy of the record of a judgment, recovered by Reynolds against Stansbury, in the superior court of Cincinnati, at the January term, 1847, for $410.97, and offered to prove by parol, that the cause of action in that suit, and the one mentioned in the record, were the same. To this evidence the plaintiff objected. The objection was overruled by the court, and the evidence admitted.
The plaintiff then offered a record of proceedings had in the superior court of Cincinnati, showing that the judgment of Reynolds against Stansbury had been set aside at the January term of that court, 1849, on motion of the plaintiff Stansbury. This record does not show affirmatively that Stansbury had notice of the motion to set aside the judgment, nor does it show for what cause the judgment was vacated. Tne defendants objected to the admission of this record, "because not showing that Stansbury had notice of the motion, or for what cause the judgment was vacated, the court had no authority, at a subsequent term, on motion, to sot aside the judgment." The court sustained the objection, and refused to permit this record to go in evidence; to which ruling of the court the ^plaintiff excepted. The jurj- returned a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiff has assigned for error the rulings of the court above referred to, in admitting the record of the recovery of the judgment in the superior court, and refusing to permit the record of the court setting aside that judgment to go in evidence, and also claiming that the court erred in their charge to the jury, which is set forth in the bill of exceptions. It is contended, in the first place, that the court erred in permitting the record to be given in evidence under the general issue, without notice.
In the case of Young et al. v. Black, 7 Cranch. 565, this same question was presented precisely as it is in this case. Justice Story, in delivering the opinion of the court in that case, says: " The defendant offered in evidence a record of a former suit between the same parties, in which judgment was rendered for the defendant, supported by parol proof that the former suit was for the same cause of action as the present suit. The plaintiffs denied its admissibility under the general issue, and we are all of opinion that the objection can not be supported."
In 1 Phillips' Evidence, page 243, the author states the rule thus: "In an action of assumpsit, the defendant may either plead a judgment recovered, or give it in evidence under the general issue."
In 1 Greenleaf's Evidence, section 531, it is laid down as well settled that a former recovery may be shown in evidence under the general issue, as well as pleaded in bar. The plaintiff relies on the case of Inman v. Jenkins, 3 Ohio, 271. The court in that case decide that a judgment of a former recovery can not be given in evidence under the general issue, without notice. That is a circuit decision, and is, as we think, contrary to the current of authority on the subject. Indeed, so far as our examination has extended, the decisions are all on the other side. We think, then, that the commercial court decided correctly in admittingthe record under the plea of the general issue.
The next question which we propose to consider is whether ^the court decided correctly in ruling out the record showing that this judgment had been set aside by the court. And this necessarily presents the other question—whether the court could treat this record, in a collateral proceeding, as a n-ullity. This is no doubt a question of some difficulty. It is contended in the first place, on behalf of defendants in error, that the term of the court at which the judgment was entered having passed, the judgment was beyond the control of the court, and that it could not, as in this case, at a subsequent term, set it aside. The question whether' a court has the power, on motion, to set aside a judgment entered at a previous term, for irregularity, is one that has been frequently adjudicated in this state.
In the case of Hunt et al. v. Yeatman, 3 Ohio, where the question was directly presented, the court held that the power of a court to set aside a judgment for manifest irregularity, was one that was exercised by all courts; and that the power may be ex- ereised, not merely at the term in which the .judgment is rendered, but at a subsequent term. And the court, in that iustarice, sustained the action of the court in error, in setting asido a judgment entered at a previous term.
The ease of Critchfield v. Porter, 518 of the same volume, was on a bill in chancery, where the complainant sought to be relieved against a judgment rendered against him, on the ground that the attorney who appeared for him and plead had no authority to act, and that ho had not been served with process. The court dismissed the bill on the ground that the complainant had a clear and ample remedy at law, by motion to have the judgment opened, although the term of the court at which it was entered had passed.
In the cases of Shelton v. Gill, 11 Ohio, 419; Sloo v. Lea, 18 Ohio, 307; and Abernethy v. Latimore, 19 Ohio, 288, the court fully recognized the same principle. The courts in New York appear to have adopted the same rule. Phillips v. Howley, 6 Johns. 129, and Morgan & Smith v. Dyer, 9 Johns. 255, are both cases in which the court held that it was ^competent for a court to open a judgment on motion, for good cause, at a term subsequent to the one at which it was rendered.
In Indiana, North Carolina, and some of the other states, the contrary rule has been established. See 7 Blackf. 334; 7 Iredell, 346. There, no doubt, is a direct conflict between the decisions on this subject. Still we must consider the rule as settled in Ohio, that a court, in a proper case, has the power, on motion, to set aside a judgment entered at a previous term. And we suppose that that power must be limited to cases where there has been irregularity in entering the judgment.
It may be proper here to remark, that all the authorities to which we have referred, as sustaining the power of the court to set aside a judgment in such a case (except that of Sloo v. Lea, 18 Ohio), are cases where the right to set aside the judgment was sought by the defendants to it.
It is not likely that the case would frequently occur in which a plaintiff would ask to sot aside his own judgment. Yet still, when the power of the court has once been established over a judgment at a subsequent term from that at which it is entered, we do not see but that a case might arise where an irregularity had crept into a judgment, without the fault of the plaintiff, where justice would require the exercise of the power on his behalf as well as that of a defendant. In the case of Sloo v. Lea, the court suggest the right to set aside the judgment, on motion, as one of the remedies which belonged to the plaintiff in the judgment. If the superior court, then, had power over this judgment at the time they set it aside; if they had power to set it aside for irregularity, they may have adjudged that irregularity existed when none did exist, and their proceedings, therefore, clearly be erroneous. Yet the record of such proceedings could not be collaterally be impeached—could not be treated as a nullity.- The Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Voorhees v. Bank of the United States, 10 Pet. 449, say : " The line which separates error in judgment from the usurpation of power is very definite, and is precisely that which denotes the cases where a judgment or ^decree is reversible only by an appellate court, or may be declared a nullity collaterally, when it is offered in evidence in an action concerning the matter adjudicated, or purporting to have been so. In the one case, it is a record imputing absolute verity; in the other, mere waste of paper.
But it is said that the record in this case does not show that Stansbury had notice of the motion to set aside the judgment; and, therefore, the court did not acquiro jurisdiction in the'matter. Now we suppose, as the proceeding was an adversary one, and one that affected the rights of Stansbury, that it was necessary he should have notice, in order to invest the court with jurisdiction. But the record does not state whether he had or had not notice. It is entirely silent on the subject.
It is a principle well established, that to support the judgment or proceedings of a court of inferior and limited jurisdiction, it is-necessary that it should be shown from the face of the record that the court had obtained jurisdiction of the person of the defendant; but that in favor of the proceedings of a court of general jurisdiction, it is presumed that it had jurisdiction of the-person of the defendant, although that fact does not appear on the record. In order to impeach the proceedings of a court of general jurisdiction, collaterally, it is necessary that the party impeaching it should prove affirmatively that process was not -served. In 17 Wend. 483, the rule ia laid down to be that, " An inferior court shall, when questioned, show that it acted within its jurisdiction, whereas, in courts of general jurisdiction, it is presumed, until the contrary is shown." In the case of Wheeler v. Raymond, 8 Cowen, 314, and the case of Bloom et al. v. Burdock, 1 Hill, 130, *tbis principle is clearly established. The superior court of Cincinnati is a court of general jurisdiction, within the legal acceptation of that term, and its jurisdiction will be presumed, although that fact does not affirmatively appear on the record. Although we think it likely that the superior court may "have erred in setting aside this judgment; yet, having the power to set aside a judgment of the court at a subsequent term, if in this instance it exercised that power erroneously, the proceeding would not therefore be void. And a majprity of the court are •of opinion that the commercial coux-t erred in not permitting the record to go in evidence. We do not think it necessary to px'oceed -further in the examination of the other errors assigned.
The judgment of the commercial court will be reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings.
Judge Spalding held, that notice might be presumed, not to bring the-parties into court, originally, but to uphold subsequent proceedings. (1)
) Spencer v. Brockaway, 1 Ohio, 259.