Court Opinion

ID: 9565163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:16:05.809251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:26.324649
License: Public Domain

Lovins, Judge,
dissenting:
The Court’s opinion herein overlooks a basic concept inherent in the constitutional requirement of due process of law. I therefore respectfully dissent from the conclusions reached, therein.
There are many confusing and irregular procedural steps involved in obtaining the original judgment of Paull, et al. v. Cook in the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania.
I think we -must appraise the validity of the judgment obtained in such court according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, except where such laws or the rules of practice and procedure violate a constitutional right. First, it is to be noted that service was had on Cook under provisions of §1201 of Title'75, Purdon’s Penna. Statutes Annotated, as amended by P. L. 1651, §1, which provides for -service of process on a non-resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who has accepted the privilege of operating a motor vehicle or having the same operated within that state, and thereby makes and constitutes the Secretary of Revenue of the Commonwealth his agent for the service of process in any civil suit or proceeding instituted in the courts of that Commonwealth against him “arising out of, or by reason of, *846any accident or collision occurring within the Commonwealth in which such motor vehicle is involved.” In general, the statute above noted is similar in its provisions to statutes covering the same subject enacted in many states. In this jurisdiction, by Chapter 47, Acts of the Legislature, 1937, service of process in similar situations is authorized. See Marcum v. State Automobile Mutual Ins. Co., 134 W. Va. 144, 59 S. E. 2d 433.
The statute, as indicated in the Court’s opinion herein, is held to be equivalent of personal service in Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U.S. 352, 47 S. Ct. 632, 71 L. Ed. 1091. It seems to me that it is a departure from the sound principles enunciated in Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L. Ed. 565, and rests on fictionalized logic. Nevertheless it must be now accepted as law. An informative discussion of such statutes will be found in. 43 W. Va. Law Quarterly, page 316, et seq., wherein many cases are collated and discussed. Examination of these cases indicates that the statute has received a strict application. See Wuchter v. Pizzutti, 276 U.S. 13, 48 S. Ct. 259, 72 L. Ed. 446.
The record in the instant case discloses that the statement of claim filed by the Paulis against Cook in the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County, Pennsylvania, contained ad damnum clauses of $289.00 jointly claimed by Paull and his wife and $5,000.00 claimed solely by Paull. A copy of such statement, as1 originally written, was served on the Secretary of Revenue of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding that fact, the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania, permitted an amendment of the ad damnum clause by increasing the same from $5,000.00 demanded by Paull to $6,000.00. It seems to me that this changed the identity of the action.
If it be conceded, as stated in the Court’s opinion, that the Common Pleas Court of Washington County has jurisdiction of the subject matter, in view of the change in the statement of claim after service on the Secretary of *847Revenue, there are serious doubts whether by service on such officer of a statement of claim for $5,000.00 and an amendment changing the amount of such claim to $6,-000.00 after service on him, the trial court had jurisdiction of the defendant Cook.
Passing over that question, and conceding, for the purpose of this opinion, that the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania, had jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter, the procedure following the inception of the action in that court was such as to deprive the trial court of jurisdiction and to destroy the essential finality of any judgment pronounced by it.. This is clear when the steps taken in the trial court are stated. First, there was a verdict actually rendered by the jury on March 5, 1947, reading in part as follows: “* * * we the jurors impaneled in the above entitled case, find O. H. Cook, the defendant, guilty of negligence and award the plaintiffs, George A. Pauli and Cel M. Pauli, his wife the sum of six thousand dollars ($6,000.00).” On the 7th day of March, 1947, the verdict of the jury was amended by the trial court to read as follows: “And now, to-wit, March 5, .1947, we, the jurors impanneled in the above entitled case, find O. H. Cook, the defendant, guilty of negligence and award the plaintiff, George A. Pauli, the sum of Six Thousand Dollars ($6,000.00).” Thereafter, on a motion to amend and mould the verdict, the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania, on the 25th day of January, 1949, almost two years after the rendition of the verdict, by a nunc “pro tunc order, entered the following verdict: “And now, to-wit, March 5, 1947, we the jurors impaneled in the above entitled case, find O. H. Cook, the defendant, guilty of negligence and award the plaintiffs, George A. Pauli and Cel M. Pauli, the sum of $289 and award the plaintiff in his own right,- George A. Pauli, the sum of $5,711.” On the last mentioned verdict judgment of that court was rendered on the 25th day of January, 1949, and the notice of motion in the instant case is grounded on the last mentioned verdict and judgment.
*848Undoubtedly, under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Common Pleas Court of Washington County had the authority to amend the verdict, but as stated by Chief Justice Maxey in the case of Maize v. Atlantic Refining Co., (Pa.), 41 A. 2d 850, 855, “To permit the verdict of a jury to be amended after the jury is discharged, except in a clear case of error in announcing and recording the verdict, might lead to great abuses, and such amendments are permissable only in very exceptional cases where the facts are not disputed and where justice requires it. * * *” The Maize case is authority for the proposition that a trial court has the right to amend a verdict of a jury after the discharge of the jury, but as said in Smullin v. Harenski (Pa.), 162 A. 319, 320, “Where the intention of the jury is plain, the court may mould the verdict into form according to the requirements of the law.” In Gaspero v. Gentile (Pa.) 50 A. 2d 754, the court in discussing a “ ‘Motion to Amend, Correct and Mold Finding and Verdict’ ” used the following language: “But it is only in éxceptional cases that the court may, after recordation of verdict and discharge of jury mould or amend that verdict, and such power is rarely, if ever, exercised, unless to make the corrected verdict conform to a verdict actually rendered but informally or improperly stated in writing.”
In this case, the amendment of the statement of claim by increasing the amount of damage claimed and the moulding of the verdict in accordance with such amendment amounted to a revision of the verdict upward. In Gaspero v. Gentile, supra, the court said: “It is also only in rare cases that the court may revise a verdict upward, although ample power exists to reduce it; the instances of revision upward usually consisting of matters of interest and similar subjects.”
Another phase of this case is that the trial court, by a nunc pro tunc order, reopened the judgment after the adjournment of the term in which the judgment was rendered. Again referring to cases in the Common*849wealth of Pennsylvania, we find that in Dellacasse v. Floyd (Pa.), 2 A. 2d 860, the power of a court in that Commonwealth to open or amend its judgments, adversely obtained, ceases at the expiration of the term at which such judgments were rendered. That rule, however, has no application to judgments obtained by confession or default. King v. Brooks, 72 Pa. 363; Dormont Motors v. Hoerr (Pa.), 1 A. 2d 493.
The conclusion is inescapable that the case of Paull v. Cook was so brought and prosecuted in the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania, that it was adverse in the sense that proof was required. The Common Pleas Court exceeded its power according to the law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in reopening its judgment pronounced in March, 1947, by a nunc pro tunc order entered in 1949. To hold otherwise is to destroy the finality of any judgment pronounced in the action. If we accept as lawful the power of the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania, to reopen its judgment at any time to amend a jury verdict any number of times, what is to prevent that court from reopening the judgment two years after the last amendment of the verdict, and, after amendment of the statement of- claim and the moulding of the verdict, to pronounce a judgment on the verdict of $10,000 or even more, and so on ad infinitum?
If we apply the principles contended for by Paull in the instant case, no judgment would ever become final. In the Court’s opinion the irregularities herein are treated as procedural, but I think that such treatment is fallacious and that such characterization is inaccurate for the reason, among others, that the service of process and the statement of the claim of $5,000 is not a sufficient warrant to mould and revise a verdict and to render a judgment thereon for $6,000.
The fact that the verdict as originally rendered by the jury was moulded and amended twice destroys any idea that the verdict was amended in January, 1949, in accord-*850anee with the obvious intent of the jury. If the intent of the jury was so obvious why was it not amended correctly the first time?
Appraising the action of the Court by the standards set by the court of last resort of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you can reach no conclusion other than that such action was unauthorized and that the trial court exceeded its legitimate powers and jurisdiction in mould-ing the verdict in January, 1949, and rendering judgment thereon. Moreover, as hereinabove stated, if the principle is followed to an ultimate conclusion, it destroys the finality of even the present judgment on which Pauli relies. Applying the rule stated in Henry v. Henry, 74 W. Va. 563, 82 S.E. 522, this Court is not called upon to enforce the judgment of a sister state lacking finality. The courts of this state are not called upon, nor required by Article 4, §1, of the Federal Constitution to accord to a void judgment full faith and credit. Perkins v. Hall, 123 W. Va. 707, 17 S.E. 2d 795.
Lest it be said that the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, once having acquired jurisdiction of the parties and subject matter, did not lose such jurisdiction by subsequent action in amending the verdict after rendition by the jury, and, in reopening its judgment after the adjournment of the term at which it was rendered, I advert to the principle that a court may lose jurisdiction.
A court having jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter may lose such jurisdiction by lapse of time. Nichols’s Appeal, 174 Pa. 405; Meyer v. Henderson (Md.), 42 A. 241; McVey v. Butcher, 72 W. Va. 526, 78 S.E. 691; Tsutras v. Farrar, 109 W. Va. 509, 155 S.E. 655; Wells Fargo & Co. v. City and County of San Francisco (Cal. App.), 144 P. 2d 415.
Jurisdiction may be lost from causes other than lapse of time. Even though a court has jurisdiction of the subject matter and the parties in a fundamental sense, it sometimes happens that a court lacking power and authority to act or grant relief fails to comply with basic *851requirements' oí due process of law. The assumption by a court of power not conferred on it, or authorized by the laws of the government under which it is organized and maintained, though such court originally had jurisdiction of the subject matter and parties, may deprive such court of jurisdiction theretofore possessed. Actions in excess of a court’s power, and the assumption of unauthorized authority and jurisdiction, renders a judgment or decree void. In re Woolley’s Estate (Vt.), 117 A. 370; Pyeatt v. Estus (Okla.), 179 P. 42; Sache v. Gillette (Minn.), 112 N.W. 386; Armstrong v. Obucino (Ill.), 133 N.E. 58.
The second headnote of the case of Armstrong v. Obucino, supra, reads as follows: “The rule that an erroneous decree of a court which has jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter can only be attacked on appeal or error is subject to an exception where the court has exceeded its jurisdiction and in its decree has transcended the law or statute to which it is applicable, as courts are limited in the extent and character of their judgment, and if they transcend their lawful powers their judgments and decrees are void and may be collaterally impeached.”
In the case of Thacker v. Ferguson, 127 W. Va. 177, 181, 32 S. E. 2d 47, this Court used the following language: “A court having jurisdiction of the subject matter of the controversy may not exceed its legitimate powers in relation thereto.” See 1 Freeman on Judgments, Fifth Edition, §354, et seq., for a complete statement of the applicable principle.
I am convinced that the proceedings in the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania, with respect to the moulding and amending of the verdict of the jury and entering judgment for an amount greater than that sought in the original claim for damages were such that that court exceeded its legitimate power and authority and deprived it cf jurisdiction to pronounce the judgment relied upon.
*852A summation of the reasons' is: (a) That the assumed power of the trial court to denominate its own conclusion a jury verdict deprived Cook of his constitutional right of a jury trial; (b) That the judgment of the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania, lacks finality.
For the reasons stated herein, I would refuse to enforce the judgment of the Common Pleas Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania, and would affirm the judgment of the Circuit Court of Hancock County, West Virginia.
Judge Given authorizes me to say that he joins in this dissent.