Gille v. Emmons

• Decision Date: 10 April 1897
• Docket Number: 9725
• Citation: 58 Kan. 118,48 P. 569
• Parties: JAMES M. GILLE v. CARRIE L. EMMONS
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

48 P. 569

58 Kan. 118

JAMES M. GILLE v. CARRIE L. EMMONS

No. 9725

Supreme Court of Kansas

April 10, 1897

Decided January, 1897.

Error from Johnson District Court. Hon. John T. Burris, Judge.

Judgment affirmed.

Witten & Hughes, for plaintiff in error.

Mills Smith & Hobbs, for defendant in error.

OPINION

JOHNSTON, J.

This was an application by Carrie L. Emmons to vacate and set aside a judgment rendered against her without right or authority by the District Court of Johnson County. It appears that, on February 4, 1887, D. R. Emmons executed two promissory notes for forty-three hundred dollars each payable one year after date with interest at the rate of eight per cent. per annum, and to secure the payment of the same executed a mortgage upon a tract of land in Wyandotte County. Being a married man, his wife, Carrie L. Emmons joined in the execution of the mortgage. Default was made in the payment of the notes, and, on March 12, 1888, an action was brought by James M. Gille, the owner of the notes and mortgage, to recover a personal judgment against D. R. Emmons and to foreclose the mortgage. Carrie L. Emmons was joined as a defendant, and, as to her, the prayer of the petition was that her equity of redemption in the mortgaged premises should be foreclosed. In her answer she alleged that she was not interested in the controversy, which related to a failure of title to part of the mortgaged land which was the consideration of the notes and mortgage in question, except as the wife of D. R. Emmons. On January 26, 1889, the trial resulted in a judgment in favor of Gille upon the notes and for a foreclosure of the mortgaged premises. A journal entry was prepared by one of the counsel for Gille, which was entered by the clerk, and, although not asked for nor authorized by the pleadings, it was made to appear that a personal judgment had been rendered against Carrie L. Emmons for $ 10,188. It seems that counsel for Gille did not intend to include her in the entry of personal judgment, and that her attorney was not aware that such an entry had been prepared or made. She had no knowledge that a judgment had been entered against her until August, 1893, when an execution was taken out and levied upon her property. She never was liable for the debt sued on, and never, by any promise, pleading, or action, authorized the creation of the debt which the mortgage was given to secure. Shortly after the levy was made upon her property, she filed, in the original cause, a motion asking that the judgment be vacated and set aside. A hearing was had at which the foregoing facts were developed; and the court held the judgment to be void and sustained the motion. This decision is assigned as error.

We entertain no doubt that the court reached a correct conclusion. The indebtedness of Carrie L. Emmons was not an issue in the case, and was never submitted to the court for its determination. The mere fact that jurisdiction of the person was obtained by the court, did not give it unlimited power to adjudge any and every matter in which the parties to the action might be concerned. A court cannot determine matters not brought to its attention by some method known to the law, nor give effective judgment upon a cause or subject-matter not brought within the scope of its judicial power. Although it may have jurisdiction in the class of cases to which a cause belongs, it cannot exercise its power until it is invoked by the parties; and if it goes outside of the issues and adjudicates a question not submitted for its decision the judgment is without force. The question was recently examined by the Supreme Court of the United States in Reynolds v. Stockton (140 U.S. 254, 35 L.Ed. 464, 11 S.Ct. 773), where it was held that in order to give a judgment rendered by even a court of general jurisdiction the merit and finality of an adjudication between the parties, it must be responsive to the issues tendered by the pleadings; and that a judgment rendered upon another and different cause of action than that stated in the complaint or submitted to the court for its decision is without binding force. In that case, Mr. Justice Brewer used the following language:

"We are not concerned in this case as to the power of amendment of pleadings lodged in the trial court, or the effect of any amendment made under such power, for no amendment was made or asked. And without amendment of the pleadings, a judgment for the recovery of the possession of real estate, rendered in an action whose pleadings disclose only a claim for the possession of personal property, cannot be sustained although personal service was made upon the defendant. The invalidity of the judgment depends upon the fact that it is in no manner responsive to the issues tendered by the pleadings. This idea underlies all litigation. Its emphatic language is, that a judgment, to be conclusive upon the parties to the litigation, must be responsive to the matters controverted. Nor are we concerned with the question as to the rule which obtains in a case in which, while the matter determined was not, in fact, put in issue in the pleadings, it is apparent from the record that the defeated party was present at the trial and actually litigated that matter. In such a case the proposition so often affirmed, that that is to be considered as done which ought to have been done, may have weight, and the amendment which ought to have been made to conform the pleadings to the evidence may be treated as having been made. Here there was no appearance after the filing of the answer, and no participation in the trial or other proceedings. Whatever may be the rule where substantial amendments to the complaint are permitted and made, and the defendant responds thereto, or where it appears that he takes actual part in the litigation of the matters determined, the rule is universal that, where he appears and responds only to the complaint as filed, and no amendment is made thereto, the...