Case Name: William A. Budd, Thomas Young, Samuel McCaulley, and Lewis P. Bush, v. The Union Bank of Delaware, for the use of Benjamin A. Janvier
Court: Delaware Superior Court
Jurisdiction: Delaware
Decision Date: 1857
Citations: 1 Houst. 455
Docket Number: 
Parties: William A. Budd, Thomas Young, Samuel McCaulley, and Lewis P. Bush, v. The Union Bank of Delaware, for the use of Benjamin A. Janvier.
Judges: 
Reporter: Delaware Reports
Volume: 6
Pages: 455–457

Head Matter:
William A. Budd, Thomas Young, Samuel McCaulley, and Lewis P. Bush, v. The Union Bank of Delaware, for the use of Benjamin A. Janvier.
No rule can be laid to show cause wherefore a judgment should not be satisfied, or issue granted to ascertain the amount due upon it, except between the parties to the judgment.
This was a rule to show cause wherefore the entry of the issue in this ease should not be corrected and reformed, so as to make the parties to the original judgment parties to the issue.
The Union Bank of Delaware had recovered a judgment against Solomon Prettyman, at the May Term of the Court, 1849, on which an execution had been issued, to which the sheriff returned, at the ensuing term, “ Levied ' on the goods of the defendant, and stayed by order of the plaintiffs’ attorney.” Afterwards at the November Term, 1850, William A. Budd, Thomas Young, Samuel McCaulley, and Lewis P. Bush, recovered a judgment against Prettyman, on which they sued out an execution to November Term, 1851, to which the sheriff returned, “ Levied on goods ^and sold, and the proceeds subject to prior executions,” and brought the money into Court,- under the provisions of the statute, subject to the order of the Court, the plaintiff in the first-mentioned judgment being the contestant for it. The plaintiffs in the latter judgment contending that the former had been satisfied, had obtained a rule of Court on the plaintiff in that judgment to ascertain what sum, if any, was due upon it, and an issue directed to be tried by a jury, at the bar of the Court, to determine the fact.' The case in which the rule was obtained and laid, was docketed upon the record of the Court as “ William A. Budd, Thomas Young, Samuel McCaulley, and Lewis P. Bush, v. The Union Bank of Delaware, for the use of Benjamin A. Janvier,” and the 'issue directed, to be tried by a jury was entered in the case as it thus stood upon the,docket; and it was to correct and reform this entry of the issue, by making the parties to the former judgment parties to the issue, that the present rule was laid.
James A. Bayard, for the plaintiff in the rule:
There was no such case on the records of this Court as William A. Budd, Thomas Young and others versus The Union Bank of Delaware, for the use of Benjamin A. Janvier, and an issue. could not be ordered in a case not in this Court. His objection was, as the issue now stood docketed on the rule obtained, and which was drawn up and entered by the counsel on the other side without his knowr ledge or consent, Prettyman, the defendant in the two judgments, but who was no party to the rule and issue as it stood entered and docketed, would be a competent witness to prove that the former judgment due the bank was paid, and we should have the unprecedented anomaly thus presented, not only of a judgment proved to be paid before a court and jury by the defendant himself in the judgment, but a judgment ordered to be entered satisfied oh the finding of a jury upon such evidence, and also at the instance of persons who are no parties to the judgment, but are entire strangers to it. The Court have no jurisdiction of such a case, and could not have known of the - entry of such a rule, and must reform it, and direct the issue to be entered between the parties to the judgment itself.
D. M. Bates, for the defendants in the rule:
The objection to the rule as laid, was not a valid objection, because the only question involved in the case was as to the application of the money brought into Court by the sheriff, arising from the sale of the goods of Prettyman on the judgment of Budd and others, and if it should be found to be applicable to the execution on that judgment, the judgment in favor of the bank would still stand and remain as a valid and subsisting judgment on the record; because no one supposed that the result of this collateral proceeding could operate, or have the effect in any way, to extinguish, or satisfy that judgment. For the issue as it now stood, and which it was entirely competent for the Court to direct, when the rule was granted, to be entered in whatever form it deemed best to meet the particular object in view, could have no such operation or effect; and therefore the objection that Prettyman himself might become a witness to prove the payment of the bank judgment, in this aspect of the case, was of no importance whatever.

Opinion:
By the Court:
The issue has been improperly entered, and this rule must be made absolute. So rule can be laid to show cause wherefore a judgment should not be satisfied, or issue granted to ascertain the amount due upon it, except between the parties to the judgment. The issue must therefore be corrected and reformed.