Court Opinion

ID: 9757460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:41:39.372062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:39.568220
License: Public Domain

Opinion by
Mr. Justice Allen M. Stearne,
Plaintiff corporation appeals from the decision of the court below striking off a judgment which plaintiff had entered by confession pursuant to a warrant of attorney contained in a lease between plaintiff-lessor and defendant-lessee. Plaintiff had entered judgment for accelerated rent for the balance of the term. It suffered, this judgment to be stricken off. Plaintiff then entered a second judgment for rent in arrears only. The court below struck off the second judgment.
Pertinent portions of the warrant of attorney in question read as follows: “If rent . . . shall remain unpaid on any day when the same ought to be paid, lessee hereby empowers any . . . attorney of any court of record to appear for lessee in any and all actions which may be brought for rent . . . and in said . . . amicable action or actions to confess judgment against lessee for all or any part of the rent specified in this lease and then unpaid including, at lessor’s option, the rent for the entire unexpired balance of the term of this lease .... Such authority shall not be exhausted by one exercise thereof, but judgment may be confessed as aforesaid from time to time as often as any of said rent . . . shall fall due or be in arrears. . .”. (Italics supplied)
*138The learned court below correctly concluded that “While this language clearly authorizes successive exercises of the power ‘as often as’ installments of rent become in arrears, it nowhere expressly, or by. necessary implication, authorizes repeated confessions of judgment for the same rent.” (emphasis supplied) Plaintiff argues that repeated exercises of the power Avere clearly contemplated by the first reference to “any and all actions,” and that the effect of the court’s decision is to treat as surplusage the concluding phrase of the power in which successive judgments are explicitly authorized.
Powers of attorney plural in form have been considered by this Court on several occasions. We have consistently held that such powers are authority for one judgment only. As early as 1836, this Court said in Adams v. Bush, 5 Watts 289, 291: “Most clearly there Avas no authority to enter five judgments for the several instalments mentioned in said bond, whatever may be the meaning or effect of the Avords ‘after filing one or more declarations to confess judgment or judgments’ against nie for the amount of the said' bond.” Several other such cases are reviewed in Philadelphia v. Johnson, 208 Pa. 645, 57 A. 1114. The power here under consideration would be no better authority for plural judgments than the Avords construed in these early cases except for the express proA’ision that the power should not be exhausted by one exercise. This clause, therefore, was necessary to establish plaintiff’s right to enter successive judgments, as defendant fell in arrears in successive months. But it cannot be regarded as authority for the entry of more than one judgment for the same rent.
The reason for the general rule that plural judg-.. ments cannot be entered pursuant to one power of .attorney'was well stated in Philadelphia v. Johnson, *139supra: “Tlie purpose of the power or warrant of attorney in the present case was the entry by confession, in an amicable action, of a judgment in favor of the lessor against the lessee. This power was completely executed and its purpose accomplished by the entry of the judgment of June 5, 1902. The power authorized nothing further, and nothing further remained to be done in pursuance of it. It became merged in the judgment. It is not material that it may have been prematurely executed, or that the judgment thus entered may have been voidable from matters outside the record. Though in the execution of the power the plaintiff may have misconceived his right of action under it, the power nevertheless remains fully executed; the execution cannot be recalled; and the power is exhausted.”'
This reasoning applies to the instant case. The full extent of the power granted to plaintiff in the lease was authority to enter judgment by confession for the entire unexpired term of the lease. This was done. It necessarily follows that the power was exhausted and could not be revitalized by striking off the original-judgment. Plaintiff was without authority to enter a' new judgment for a portion of the sum originally claimed.
Judgment affirmed.