Court Opinion

ID: 9644159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:49:07.17718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:09.172180
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
Before McDERMOTT, Circuit Judge, and JOHNSON, District Judge.
PER CURIAM.
Appellant urges, in a petition for rehearing, that where a chancellor seasonably and substantially modifies a decree in equity, time for appeal runs from the entry of the modified decree. That may be conceded. But appellant’s complaint is not directed at the so-called modification, but at the original decree ordering a sale, which was not modified.
The decree of foreclosure was entered in May, 1931, and time for appeal expired in August, 1931. In December, a petition for rehearing was filed. That petition was denied, and an order entered which did not alter or modify the decree of foreclosure, but simply permitted appellant to assert any claim he might have against the proceeds. Appellant has not, and does not, complain of the permission so accorded him; his complaint has been, and still is, that the eourt erred in ordering a sale of the property in May. The effort is therefore to appeal from the 1931 decree long after it became final— an attempt to do indirectly that which cannot be done directly.
But if appellant were by this barrier, he would be no better off. The decree of May, 1931, and the order denying the rehearing, are valid on their face; we are not advised as to what evidence or admissions were before the trial court when the decrees were entered, for the record is barren of any proceedings below except the pleadings and orders. Decrees are reversed because of errors appearing in the record, and not because of the ipse dixit of a brief.
The petition for rehearing is denied.