Court Opinion

ID: 9826938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:00:21.582636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:19.823911
License: Public Domain

On Appellee’s Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee has filed a vigorous and somewhat lengthy motion for rehearing, in which he calls our attention to a statement in our original opinion that the Illinois circuit court, after granting defendant’s motion for a new trial, ordered defendant and plaintiff to pleadi It appears that only defendant was ordered to plead. We correct this statement in the interest of accuracy, and not because we believe it affects materially our judgment.
After a careful reconsideration of the questions involved in this appeal, we do not find ourselves able to disturb the judgment heretofore rendered by this court.
The evidence shows that in a letter of Johnson’s, written January 11,1918, to Anton Benson, 412 Harris Trust building, Chicago, Ill., Johnson said:
“The two Dyer notes consisting of $1,260.00 and the balance on the $500 note now being $150.15, I believe that I stated to you before that on last July 9, your brother Charles gave me a new note of $3,903.12 in full settlement to that date including the above described notes and the accrued interest to date, and what equity I had in a lot in Brookfield.”
Johnson testified in the trial in Texas in the case by deposition, and, although asked about this letter, he never denied writing it, and never denied that he wrote that the $500 note had been reduced, by payment or otherwise, to $150.15. He did say that the settlement mentioned in this letter by Charles Benson’s giving him a new note for $3,903.12 in full settlement of the two Dyer notes sued on had never been consummated; that Benson agreed to give him a lien on some property, and had not done so. The judgment obtained in Illinois and sued on in Texas was for the full amount of the two notes alleged to have been executed by Dyer and Carpenter, with no allowance for any payments on the $500 note.
In Rea v. Forrest, 88 Ill. 275, 276, the Supreme Court of Illinois said, quoting from the headnotes:
“Where the payee of a note more than reimburses himself from a note .assigned to him by the maker as collateral security, and retains the collateral, he will not be entitled to enforce payment of the principal note thus paid; and if he takes a judgment thereon, under a power of attorney attached thereto, without the knowledge or consent of the maker, it will be fraudulent and void.”
In First National Bank of Danville v. Cunningham, a suit to enforce in Kentucky a .judgment alleged theretofore to have been obtained in Illinois, opinion by Circuit Court, *42648 P. 510, it is said, quoting from the head-notes:
“1. Judgment on Confession — Validity— Fraud.
“A warrant of attorney contained in a note to confess judgment thereon remains in force only so long as the note is unpaid ; and where the payee, after receiving satisfaction thereof, fraudulently conceals the fact, and procures an attorney to appear and confess judgment without the maker’s knowledge or consent, such appearance confers no jurisdiction on the court, and the judgment is void.
“2. Same — Motion to Vacate — Collateral Attack.
“Where a judgment has been fraudulently obtained in the absence of the defendant, the fact that he subsequently moves to vacate the same and afterwards withdraws his motion by leave of court, does not constitute an appearance to the action such as will render the judgment valid, and he may still impeach it in a collateral suit.
“3. Judgment of Another State — Collateral Attack — Constitutional Law.
“The provision of the federal constitution that full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state gives to a judgment rendered in another state only such credit as it is entitled to in that state; and, if it may there be collaterally attacked for want of jurisdiction in the court rendering it, it may be so attacked in any other state.
“4. Action on Foreign Judgment — Fraud.
“In a suit brought upon a judgment rendered in another state upon the appearance and confession of an attorney under a warrant contained in the note sued on, the defendant may show that the judgment was fraudulent and void by reason of the fact that the warrant of attorney had expired by previous payment of the note.”
We have concluded that we heretofore correctly disposed of the questions involved in the appeal.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.