Buckmaster v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 31 December 1841
• Parties: Nathaniel Buckmaster et al., plaintiffs in error,v.John Jackson, ex dem. William Carlin, defendant in error.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

3 Scam. 104

4 Ill. 104

1841 WL 3265 (Ill.)

Nathaniel Buckmaster et al., plaintiffs in error,

v.John Jackson, ex dem. William Carlin, defendant in error.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

December Term, 1841.

Error to Madison.

The rule in relation to judgments is, that if the court has jurisdiction of the parties and subject matter of the controversy, and the party against whom the judgment is rendered has had either actual or constructive notice of the pendency of the suit, no error can render the judgment void. But where the jurisdiction over the person or subject matter does not exist, the judgment is a nullity. ^a

A judgment or execution, irreversible by a superior court, cannot be declared a nullity by any authority of law, if it has been rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter, with authority to use the process it has issued. It must remain the only test of the respective rights of the parties to it.

A purchaser, under a judicial sale, is not bound to look beyond the decree, when executed by a conveyance, nor further back than the order of the court, where the facts necessary to give the court jurisdiction appear on the face of the record.

Where, upon a mortgage made to the old State Bank of Illinois, a judgment had been rendered in favor of the bank, upon a proceeding by scire facias to foreclose the mortgage, and the mortgaged premises had been sold by virtue of the judgment, and an execution issued thereon, to a third person; and subsequently the Supreme Court had declared the act creating the bank unconstitutional: Held, that the judgment was valid till reversed, and that the title of the purchaser, under such judgment, could not be impeached in an action of ejectment, upon the ground that the bank was unconstitutional. ^b

In an action of ejectment, it is unnecessary for a party who claims title under a sale of the premises upon execution, issued upon a judgment, rendered upon a mortgage, to prove either the mortgage, writ of scire facias, or other proceeding anterior to the judgment, as they became part of the record, by the judgment, which proves itself.

This cause was heard in the court below, at the August term, 1840, before the Hon. Sidney Breese. It was brought to this court by writ of error.

S. T .Logan, Wm. Martin and Geo. T. M. Davis, for plaintiffs in error, cited 1 Peters, 340-1; 2 Peters, 162, 169; 6 Peters, 19, 729, 730; 9 Peters, 28; 10 Peters, 469, 478; 1 Scam., 526.

M. McConnel and A. Cowles, for the defendant in error, cited 4 Peters, 437, 440-2; Linn v. State Bank, 1 Scam., 87; Voorhees v. U. S. Bank, 10 Peters, 474; Salk., 599; 8 Coke, 118; 1 Kent's Com., 448, 451; 1 Bay, 252; Hook v. Henderson, 4 Dev. N. C. R., 15; 2 Kent's Com., 7, 11; Smith v. Rice, 11 Mass.; Curtis v. Swearingen, Breese, 99; Williams v. Peyton's Lessee, 4 Peters' Cond. R., 395; U. S. v. Fisher et al., 1 Peters' Cond. R., 421; Blair v. Worley, 1 Scam., 178; Betts v. Menard, Breese's App., 10.

SMITH, Justice, delivered the opinion of the court.¹

This was an action of ejectment, to recover the possession of three hundred and twenty acres of land, situated in Madison county. The plaintiff, in the Circuit Court, sought to recover, under a title deduced from a person, as grantor, of the name of Pruitt, the original patentee from the United States. The defendants relied on the same source of title, deduced from a judicial sale, made under and by virtue of a judgment and execution of the Circuit Court, in which the present cause was litigated, the judgment having been rendered against the said Pruitt, anterior to the conveyance by Pruitt to the lessor of the plaintiff. The plaintiff, in the Circuit Court, having offered his evidence, and rested his case, the defendants, in order to establish their right of possession, and title to the lands in question, offered to produce and read in evidence, a mortgage made by Pruitt, the patentee of these same lands, to the president and directors of the State Bank of Illinois, created in 1821, of the date of the 6th of August, 1822, duly executed and recorded, according to law.

They likewise offered to produce, and read in evidence to the jury, the following, as evidence on the part of the defense, and to establish their title and right to the possession of the land in controversy:

First. Two writs of scire facias, issued from the Madison Circuit Court, returnable to two different terms of the court, in 1826, founded on the said mortgage, with the returns thereon, being those issued in the cause.

Second. The record of a final judgment against Pruitt, regularly obtained in said court, by the president and directors of the State Bank, at the August term of the court, in 1826, showing that the process had been duly and legally returned, which return showed constructive notice of the pendency of the suit to the defendant, Pruitt.

Third. A regular special writ of execution, issued under and by virtue of such judgment, and also a levy and appraisement, according to law, as appears by the return of the sheriff to such execution, by which he was commanded to sell the mortgaged premises; and a deed from the sheriff of Madison county to one Christopher Stout, dated the 11th day of February, 1828, for the said premises, in pursuance of a sale made to said Stout, under and by virtue of the execution aforesaid; which deed was duly acknowledged and recorded, the 26th of August, 1833.

Fourth. The defendants further offered to read in evidence a portion of the records of the recorder's office of Madison county, to show a deed executed to one of the defendants, by Esther Pruitt, the widow of Abraham Pruitt, the grantor, under whom the plaintiff claimed, of her life estate, in the premises, which offer was predicated on an affidavit of one of the defendants of the loss of the original.

The Circuit Court refused to admit the evidence offered, and excluded the same, to which decision the defendants excepted; and this decision, excluding all the evidence offered, is now assigned as the grounds of error.

The counsel for the defendant in error contend that the judgment, under which the judicial sale was made, was absolutely void, because this court has, at a time subsequent to the obtention of the judgment offered in evidence, in another case, between another person and the same president and directors of the State Bank, declared that the contract between those parties, on which a judgment had been rendered in one of the Circuit Courts of this State, was void, said contract being in violation of that clause of the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits the states from emitting bills of credit, such bills having been the consideration of that contract.

If this was the only ground, as it seems to be admitted it was, upon which the evidence offered was rejected, it is unquestionably an insufficient one, and does not justify that exclusion.

Upon what principle a judgment, rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, as the Circuit Court of Madison county confessedly is, having jurisdiction of the person, and over the subject matter, on which it is adjudicated, and the party against whom its judgment is rendered having had actual or constructive notice of the pendency of the action, can be declared a nullity, is not perceived.

The rule, as it is understood in reference to valid and void judgments, is, whether, or not, the tribunal before whom the parties are called, has jurisdiction of the persons and the subject matter of the controversy; and whether, or not, the party against whom judgment is rendered, has had either actual or constructive notice of the pendency of the suit. If the jurisdiction attaches, and notice is given, no errors or irregularities, which may have been committed during the progress of the cause, can render the judgment void.

In cases of errors or irregularities occurring, they are to be corrected, either by an application to the tribunal where they arise, or in an appellate court, by some direct proceeding between the parties.

On the contrary, where this jurisdiction over the person, or subject matter, does not exist, the judgment is a mere nullity; decides nothing; concludes no one; and may be rejected, when collaterally drawn in question.

In the case before us, it is manifest that the laws of the State, by which the bank was created, and made a corporation, had conferred on it full power to contract, and be contracted with, and also to sue in its corporate name.

The bank had, therefore, a right to apply to the forum, which it sought, for a remedy to enforce the contract made with it, in the case where the mortgage was given as a security for the performance of that contract, and it had an equal right, in the due course of law, to the judgment obtained in its favor, no objection being raised to the constitutionality of its creation.

The defendants, then, depended on that judgment, the levy, and the sale and deed of the sheriff, to substantiate their title to the premises; and it was not competent for the Circuit Court, in such a case, under a judicial sale, to permit a collateral inquiry into the question, whether the original contract of mortgage, and the reception of the bills of the bank by the mortgagor, was a contract void in itself, because in the making of the contract, and the issue and circulation of the bills, the parties did acts in violation of, and conflict with, that provision of the constitution of the United States prohibiting the states from issuing bills of credit; much less to declare such judgment void in such collateral inquiry.

The party, against whom the judgment had been rendered, had been content; he was satisfied with the result of the proceedings. He had neither urged injustice nor illegality in the rendition of the judgment and subsequent proceedings. If so, shall a person, neither a party, nor a privy to the judgment, be allowed collaterally to destroy the effect of the judgment, and...