Clem v. Meserole

• Decision Date: 07 May 1902
• Citation: 32 So. 815,44 Fla. 234
• Parties: CLEM et al. v. MESEROLE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

32 So. 815

44 Fla. 234

CLEM et al. v. MESEROLE.

Florida Supreme Court

May 7, 1902

Error to circuit court, Orange county; John D. Broome, Judge.

Action by Frank B. Meserole against David R. Clem and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants bring error. Reversed.

Mabry J., dissenting.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. Before a sheriff's deed is admissible in evidence for the purpose of proving title thereunder, a valid judgment and execution must be shown, whether such judgment emanated from a court of general or one of limited jurisdiction, and whether the party against whom the judgment was rendered be the party against whom it is offered or not. To the extent that the decision in Hartley v. Ferrell, 9 Fla. 374 conflicts with this rule, it is overruled.

2. Prior to the enactment of chapter 4723, Acts 1899, a judgment entry alone, unaccompanied by any other part of the record of such judgment, or a sufficient explanation of its absence when offered in evidence for a purpose other than to show the mere fact of its rendition, was inadmissible if seasonably objected to, and the rule was the same even though such judgment emanated from a court of general jurisdiction, or contained general recitals of jurisdictional facts.

COUNSEL

L. D. Browne (R. H. Terry, on the brief), for plaintiffs in error.

Arthur F. Odlin, for defendant in error.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

This cause was referred by the court to its commissioners for investigation, and a majority of them report that the judgment ought to be reversed.

The action was ejectment in the circuit court of Orange county brought by defendant in error against plaintiffs in error. The plea was not guilty. The abstract states that plaintiff, to prove his title to the land in controversy, offered in evidence a judgment recovered in the circuit court of Orange county January 2, 1894, in a suit wherein the Sanford Loan & Trust Company was plaintiff and the defendant David R. Clem and J. F. Fitzsimmons, formerly copartners trading as J. F. Fitzsimmons & Co., were defendants. The judgment was declared to be a lien on certain lands therein described, being in part the lands in controversy, and which were the individual property of defendant Clem. The document so offered in evidence was as follows: 'And now, on this 2d day of January, A. D. 1894, comes the plaintiff in the above-entitled cause, by A. M. Thrasher and Arthur F. Odlin, its attorneys, and produces the original notes mentioned in the declaration filed by plaintiff in this action; and it appearing to the court that this action was commenced by the attachment of certain real estate in Orange county, Florida, as the property of David R. Clem, one of the defendants in this action, and that notice of said attachment has been duly published as required by law, and that a default was duly entered on the rule day in January, A. D. 1894, against the said defendant David R. Clem, for want of appearance herein, it is therefore considered and adjudged that the plaintiff, the Sanford Loan & Trust Company, a corporation, do have and recover of and from the said defendant David R. Clem the sum of two hundred and twenty-eight dollars as principal, two hundred and four dollars as interest, and forty dollars as attorneys' fees, and the costs of this action, which are taxed at twenty-six dollars and twenty-five cents. But this judgment is a lien on no other property, and said real estate is described as follows, to wit.' Here follows a description of real estate, which it is not necessary to set out, and the document concludes as follows: 'Done and ordered at chambers at De Land, Florida (Volusia county), this 2d day of January, A. D. 1894. John D. Broome, Judge 7th Judicial Circuit of Florida.'

Defendants objected to the admission of said judgment in evidence on the grounds that said judgment must be shown to be a vaild judgment, and that, where it emanates from a court of limited or statutory jurisdiction, it is not a valid judgment, unless it affirmatively appears on its face that the court had jurisdiction of the person or subject-matter of the suit in which such judgment was rendered. The objection was overruled, and the document admitted, to which ruling defendants excepted. Plaintiff then offered in evidence the execution issued upon said judgment under which the lands in controversy were sold. This document was objected to upon the grounds that, before such execution could be admitted in evidence, a valid judgment must be shown, and that, where execution is based upon a judgment rendered by a court exercising statutory powers, there is no presumption of regularity of the proceedings, but it must affirmatively appear by the record that the court had jurisdiction; but the court overruled the objections, and admitted the document in evidence, to which ruling defendants excepted. Plaintiff then offered in evidence the sheriff's deed, based on said judgment and execution, conveying the lands in controversy to him. Defendants objected to its being admitted on the ground that plaintiff's deed was not admissible without previously showing his power to make such deed, and that, before a sheriff's deed can be admitted for the purpose of proving title thereunder, a valid judgment must be shown, and that, where judgment is rendered by a court exercising statutory jurisdiction, there is no presumption of regularity of the proceedings, but it must affirmatively appear from the record that the court had jurisdiction of the person or subject-matter; but the court overruled the objection, and admitted the document, to which ruling defendants excepted. The trial resulted in a verdict and judgment for plaintiff, from which judgment this writ of error was taken.

The court is of opinion that the objections urged to the admission in evidence of the documents mentioned are sufficiently broad to raise the question whether it was necessary to introduce the record of the suit which culminated in the judgment, offered in evidence, along with such judgment, or whether the judgment entry alone (that being all that was offered or admitted) was properly admissible. Under the decisions in this state it is clear that a judgment entry alone, unaccompanied by any other part of the record of such judgment, or any sufficient explanation of its absence, when offered in evidence for a purpose other than to show the fact of its rendition, is inadmissible if seasonably objected to. Unless there is something in this case to take it out of the rule, the court below was in error in the ruling admitting the judgment entry alone. It is suggested that the circuit court is a court of general jurisdiction; that its judgments import verity, and in their support the law presumes that the court rendering them had jurisdiction of the person and the subject-matter and to render the judgment; and also that the judgment here offered in evidence contained recitals showing jurisdiction; and therefore the rule prevailing in this state, as held in Watson v. Jones, 41 Fla. 241, 25 So. 678, and other Florida cases cited therein, should not apply to the present case. The court is of opinion that the rule is a rule of evidence, and that it is not qualified by the fact that the judgment offered is from a court of general jurisdiction, nor by the fact that it may contain general recitals of jurisdiction. A party is entitled to have the whole record, so far as it concerns the formal stages, produced, because such record is a material part of the judgment, and because he has a right to insist that the presumptions applicable to judgments of courts of general jurisdiction shall be applied only when it is ascertained from an inspection of the whole record that it does not affirmatively appear therefrom that the court did not have jurisdiction to render the judgment. General recitals of jurisdiction are, as to many matters, merely conclusions drawn by the court from inspecting other parts of the record proper, and as to which, in case of conflict between the matters of record proper and the recitals, the former will control. The record proper and the judgment constitute together one entire document, every part of which is relevant to the question whether the judgment is a valid one; and the party ahs a right to insist that every part of that relevant document be submitted when the judgment is offered in evidence to prove a title under sheriff's sale against him. Hargis v. Morse, 7 Kan. 415; State v. Hawkins, 81 Ind. 486; Brown v. Eaton, 98 Ind. 591; 1 Whart. Ev. § 824. A party may unquestionably waive the production of the entire record, if he chooses, by not objecting to the introduction of the judgment entry (Simmons v. Spratt, 20 Fla. 495); but in this case the objections are broad enough to cover the point. The trial of this case was prior to the enactment of chapter 4723, Acts 1899, and the question just considered cannot, therefore, be affected by the provisions of that act.

It is also suggested that in Hartley v. Ferrell, 9 Fla 374, as limited and explained in Davis v. Shuler, 14 Fla. 438, it was held that a plaintiff in ejectment, who claims under a sheriff's sale under an execution against the defendant in ejectment, has only to...