Grames v. Hawley

• Decision Date: 01 February 1883
• Citation: 50 F. 319
• Parties: GRAMES v. HAWLEY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas

50 F. 319

GRAMES v. HAWLEY.

United States Circuit Court, D. Kansas.

February, 1883

William Littlefield and S. O. Thacher, for plaintiff.

John W Deford, and A. W. Benson, for defendant.

McCRARY Circuit Judge.

1. The order of discontinuance made by the court in pursuance of the agreement of compromise and settlement was in the nature of a final order disposing of the case. Whatever power the court may have had over the case and the parties after that order was made and during the same term, I am of the opinion that after the term it had no power to set the same aside on motion. The power of the court over the action and over the parties to it had been exhausted by the final adjournment of the term at which the final order of dismissal was entered, and it could not resume jurisdiction either over the subject-matter or the parties without a new proceeding and the service therein of the ordinary original process. Cameron v. McRoberts, 3 Wheat. 591; Bank v Moss, 6 How. 31; Sibbald v. U.S., 12 Pet. 488; Assignees v. Dorsey, 2 Wash.C.C. 433; Becker v. Sauter, 89 Ill. 596; Jackson v. Ashton, 10 Pet. 480. The rule is thus stated in Sibbald v. U.S.:

'No principle is better settled or of more universal application than that no court can reverse or annul its own final decrees or judgments for errors of fact or law after the term at which they have been rendered, unless for clerical mistakes.'

And in Johnson v. Ashton, the court said:

'We have no power over the decrees rendered by this court, after the term has passed, and the cause has been dismissed or otherwise finally disposed of.'

The fact that fraud in the settlement of this suit is charged in no manner affects the question of jurisdiction or the mode of acquiring it. A judgment can no more be set aside upon motion after the term upon the ground of fraud than upon any other ground. A hearing upon proper notice upon that question is the right of the party charged with the fraud. We cannot assume the truth of the charge for the purpose of affecting the decision of the question of jurisdiction. What we are not to consider is whether the New York court had jurisdiction of the defendant for the purpose of trying the question of fraud. And the rule governing the decision of this question of jurisdiction is that at the end of ther term at which there is a final disposition of the case (final in the sense that, if not appealed from, it ends the controversy) the parties are dismissed sine die. If they are citizens of foreign states, they may safely depart for their homes. If they had employed an attorney, they may then discharge him with the assurance that the controversy is at an end, and can be renewed only by proceedings in the nature of error or appeal, and that, except in the event of such proceedings, no valid service of process can be made upon the attorney. Such is the doctrine recognized by the federal courts, and it has peculiar force in all cases where parties are compelled to litigate in foreign tribunals. There is no presumption of law that the relation of attorney and client continues after the termination of the litigation, and after the final adjournment of the term at which a final judgment is rendered. Weeks, Attys. at Law, 425, 426. And it is but fair and reasonable-- especially in cases like...