Court Opinion

ID: 6957083
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 01:39:21.682463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:08:19.076896
License: Public Domain

This cause was heard at the September term, 1872, and a rehearing having been granted, the following additional opinion was delivered at the September term, 1873 : Per Curiam : A rehearing was ordered in this cause upon the present appeal, not for the purpose of reconsidering the case upon the merits, or to change, or, in any substantial sense, to modify our former decision, but to render the opinion of the court more explicit, and prevent misconception of its meaning. This seems demanded by the peculiar state of the record, which was inadvertently overlooked, and the language employed in the opinion, to which our attention has been called by the application for a rehearing. When the cause was before us upon a former occasion, the principal questions involved were definitely settled. The decree of the court below, dismissing both the original and cross bills, wras reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to grant the relief prayed by Mrs. Buckner’s cross-bill. 58 Ill. 310. In pursuance of those directions, a decree was entered in the circuit court, November 13,1871. This decree established the principal rights of the parties, and the court proceeded to carry them into effect, which involved the necessity of entering three subsequent decretal orders, and on August 2, 1872, another and final decree. This decree disposed of a controversy arising between the parties upon proceedings for partition, involving a claim by Mrs. Buckner to a share in what is called the “'Spencer tract,” as a part of her father’s estate, and by that decree her claim was allowed, from which an appeal was taken, on behalf of the infant, Henry W. Kings-bury, to this court. No appeal was taken from the decree of November 13,1871, but appeals were taken from some of the decretal orders intervening that and the final decree of August 2, 1872. Upon these appeals the whole record was brought to this court, and errors assigned, questioning the propriety of the decree of November 13, 1871, entered in conformity with the directions of this court, some of the intervening orders, and the final decree of August 2,1872. The questions raised and attempted to be raised were all carefully considered, and the conclusion arrived at was, that no error could be assigned upon the first decree, entered in pursuance of the directions of this court; that the points made upon the intervening orders were not well taken, but that the decree of August 2, 1872, was erroneous, and ought to be reversed, for the reasons given in the opinion. These views, however, are not clearly announced in the former opinion, and it follows also that the directions contained in the opinion which have no relation to the matters involved in the decree of August 2, 1872, are wholly inappropriate, and may be considered as withdrawn from the opinion. The judgment which we intended to enter was, that the several decrees and decretal orders antecedent to the final decree of August 2, 1872, and upon which error was assigned, be affirmed, but that the decree of August 2, 1872, concerning Mrs. Buckner’s claim in the Spencer tract, be reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings in conformity with the former opinion, as herein explained and modified, and that each party pay half of the costs in this court.