Case Name: Charles Wood, App'lt, v. William Mitchell, Resp't
Court: New York Supreme Court, General Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1889-07-09
Citations: 25 N.Y. St. Rep. 147
Docket Number: 
Parties: Charles Wood, App’lt, v. William Mitchell, Resp’t.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York State Reporter
Volume: 25
Pages: 147–149

Head Matter:
Charles Wood, App’lt, v. William Mitchell, Resp’t.
(Supreme Court, General Term, First Department,
Filed July 9, 1889.)
Judgment — Confession in favor of infant, without appointment of GUARDIAN AD LITEM.
A confession of judgment in favor of an infant, without the appointment of a guardian ad litem, will be set aside on motion of a judgment creditor, whose judgment was obtained shortly after the confession, and before the appointment of a guardian ad litem, nune pro tune. Macomber, J., dissenting.
Appeal from order of the special term, denying plaintiff’s motion in this action, to set aside judgment in favor of Thomas Gr. Mitchell and others.
J. C. Bergen, for app’lt; Cornelius Bor emus and Barlow & Carman, for resp’t.

Opinion:
Van Brunt, P. J.
We cannot concur in the conclusion to which Mr. Justice Macomber has arrived in this case.
It is not necessary to determine whether, under any circumstances, a confession of judgment might, or might not, be entered in favor of an infant, or whether the appointment of a guardian ad litem, nunc pro tune, six months after the entry of the judgment, in any way altered the status of the judgment.
It is, however, clear that the plaintiff, in the confession, might accept or reject the same, more especially in a case such as the one at bar, where the acceptance of the confession would work a waiver of a tort, which the plaintiff, in the confession, had suffered at the hands of the defendant in the confession. The result would be that, in the case of an infant, a person who had become liable on a tort to an infant, might confess a judgment in favor of the infant as • upon a contract, and place this judgment in the way of other creditors pursuing their remedies against his property, which judgment the infant plaintiff could repudiate upon' .attaining his majority. Such results should not be permitted, unless the law expressly authorizes them, and as no such inference is to be drawn in favor of confessions for liabilities arising under circumstances such as the one under consideration, the motion to set aside the confession, in the case at bar, should have been granted.
The order should be reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and the motion granted.
Bartlett, J., concurs.