Court Opinion

ID: 8037458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 03:22:35.001218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:37:11.537638
License: Public Domain

Carter, J.,
dissenting.
It is the contention of the appellant in this case that his attorney entered into an oral stipulation with the attorney for appellees to the effect that a partition suit then pending should proceed to trial and.that the rights *83of the parties to the moneys derived from the sale of the lands involved should be tried out in the partition proceeding instead of in an injunction suit that had been commenced by Claude O. Drake, one of the appellees. During the pendency of the partition action, without the knowledge or consent of appellant’s attorney, appellee’s attorney secured a default decree in the injunction suit in which title to appellee’s claimed interest was quieted in him. This decree was then successfully pleaded as res adjiodicata of the matters involved in the partition suit and deprived appellant of a trial of his claims on the merits.
That conversations were had between the attorneys for the respective parties relating to the disposition of the cases is amply borne out by the evidence. It is true that the evidence is in conflict as to whether the agreement was actually made by the two attorneys. It is evident, however, that both attorneys knew that the case was to be contested, and that neither party intended to default. Under such a state of facts the trial court should have vacated the default decree procured by appellee’s attorney and permitted appellant to appear and defend.
This court has often said that attorneys are officers of the court, over whom the court may exercise a limited amount of supervision. Litigants generally place some confidence in these judicial assertions. One attorney ought not to be permitted to take a default decree favorable to his client, when he must have known from the circumstances surrounding the litigation of the intention of the other party to contest it, especially where it appears that the other attorney has been lulled into a feeling of security by reason of conversation had between them.
The purpose of courts is to arrive at justice between litigants who are unable to solve their own difficulties. To do so in an efficient way, rules must be adopted and followed. But a litigant, free from fault and without knowledge of the real facts, ought not to be deprived of his defense because officers of the court disagree as to the re-*84suit of conversations had between them when both knew that each had interests which he desired to maintain. The enforcement of rules ought not to become such a fetish that the objectives of the law are lost and innocent litigants thereby compelled to risk their cases in a game of wits instead of in an impartial trial on the merits.
In my judgment, the trial court should have vacated the default judgment, and it was an abuse of discretion constituting reversible error on his part not to do so.
I am authorized to say that Simmons, C. J., and Johnsen, J., concur in this dissent.