Case Name: PUTNAM v. LAWRENCE
Court: Vermont Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Vermont
Decision Date: 1877-08
Citations: 50 Vt. 66
Docket Number: 
Parties: PUTNAM v. LAWRENCE.
Judges: 
Reporter: Vermont Reports
Volume: 50
Pages: 66–67

Head Matter:
PUTNAM v. LAWRENCE.
Petition for New Trial. Abatement.
A petition for new trial served one day before dismissal of a former petition in tlie same court for the same cause, was dismissed on motion, the concurrent pendency of the two petitions being fatal to the latter.
Petition for a new trial. The original cause was tried at the September Term, 1874, the trial beginning on October 2d, and the testimony closing October 6th. The court adjourned on November 23d, and judgment was rendered as of that day. The petitioner thereupon brought a petition like the present one, and for the same cause, which was heard and dismissed at the General Term, 1876, the court adjourning on November 23. On November 22, one day before that adjournment, this petition was served on the petitionee. At the present term the petitionee moved to dismiss the petition, for that the petition was not brought within two years next after rendition of judgment in the original cause; and for that the first named petition was pending at the time of the bringing and serving of this petition.
--, for the petitioner.
J. 0. Livingston and J. A. Wing, for the petitionee.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Barrett, J.
This cause stands upon a motion to dismiss a petition for a new trial. The petition was served on Lawrence on the 22d day of November 1876. Putnam had brought a like petition for the same cause, which was dismissed at the General Term of the Supreme Court, which adjourned on the 23d day of November, 1876. The motion to dismiss in the present case is sustained on the second ground assigned in the motion. It falls within the views expressed in Mann v. Fairlee, 44 Vt. 678, and in Shepard v. Hayes, 16 Vt. 486. We think those views sound in principle and salutary in application. Though in this case the concurrent pendency of the two petitions was brief, still, according to the calendar, both secular and legal, the later petition was pending for a day while the other was still pending. That fact is fatal to the latter.
The petition is dismissed with costs.