Gotham Credit Corp.. v. Powell

• Decision Date: 18 July 1944
• Docket Number: No. 86457.,86457.
• Citation: 38 A.2d 700
• Parties: GOTHAM CREDIT CORPORATION v. POWELL et al.
• Court: New Jersey District Court

38 A.2d 700

GOTHAM CREDIT CORPORATION

v.POWELL et al.

No. 86457.

District Court of Camden City, New Jersey.

July 18, 1944.

Suit by Gotha Credit Corporation against Nellie Powell and another on a foreign judgment.

Judgment entered for plaintiff.

Joseph L. Kramer, of Jersey City, for plaintiff.

Benjamin Asbell, of Camden, for defendant Connie Sokalski.

Edward A. Tanski, of Camden, for Nellie Powell.

MARTINO, Judge.

On November 13, 1942, plaintiff recovered a judgment in the Court of Common Pleas No. 6, for the County of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, against both defendants. The judgment was based upon a warrant to confess judgment executed by the defendants in the State of New Jersey. The warrant to confess judgment was part of a note which was executed by the defendants, and the warrant to confess judgment contained the following provision: ‘The makers jointly and severally hereby constitute and appoint the attorney for the payee herein or the holder of this note or any attorney of any Court of Record of the State of Pennsylvania or elsewhere, their true and lawful attorney, for them and in their names and stead to appear for and to enter judgment against them, or any of them, for the above sum, with or without declaration filed, with costs of suit, release of errors, without stay of execution; and we also waive the right of inquisition on any real estate that may be levied upon to collect this note, and do hereby voluntarily condemn the same, and authorize the Prothonotary to enter upon the Fi.Fa., our said voluntary condemnation, and we further agree that said real estate may be sold on a Fi.Fa., and we also waive and release all benefit of relief from any and all appraisement, stay, or exemption laws of the State of Pennsylvania, of any other state and of the United States now in force, or hereafter to be passed in so far as the same can be waived by us.’

The defendants contend that judgment was improperly entered in the State of Pennsylvania. At the time of the trial counsel for defendants made much of the fact that since the warrant of attorney to confess judgment was included in the body of the note it was void under the laws of the State of New Jersey. R.S. 2:27-266, N.J.S.A. The defendants therefore felt that since the warrant of attorney to confess judgment was void in the State of New Jersey where it was executed the judgment obtained therefrom was not entitled to full faith and credit by the Courts of this State. This raises the question whether a judgment entered without process or appearance but entered in conformity with the authority given by a warrant of attorney executed by the defendants confers jurisdiction upon a court to enter a judgment which is unassailable collaterally in both domestic and foreign jurisdictions. The practice of empowering an attorney to appear and confess judgment is a part of the common-law procedure 3 Bl. Comm. page 397.

In construing the statute which is now recognized as 2:27-266, our highest Court has held that this statute must be construed to be a mere regulation of the practice in our own courts. The Legislature did not intend to prohibit the making in this...