Greenlaw v. Kernahan
| Decision Date | 30 April 1857 |
| Citation | 36 Tenn. 371 |
| Parties | WILLIAM B. GREENLAW et al. v. ALICIA A. KERNAHAN. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
FROM SHELBY.
This was an action of ejectment, brought by the defendant in error against the plaintiffs in error in the common-law court at Memphis, to recover a lot of ground in that city. Upon the trial in the court below, at the March term, 1857, the defendants produced a transcript of a proceeding in the chancery court at Somerville, by which, as was alleged, the title of the plaintiff in the lot in question had been divested out of her. This proceeding of the chancery court at Somerville was had at a time when that court had full jurisdiction in the premises. On the part of the plaintiff it was urged that the proceeding at Somerville, on account of the informal appointment of a guardian ad litem, was irregular and void, and of this opinion was Judge Caruthers, who instructed the jury accordingly. There was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff; from which the defendants appealed in error.
Sylvester Bailey, for the plaintiffs in error:
This case turns upon a single question raised in the court below on the validity of a decree pronounced in the chancery court at Somerville, Tennessee.
On the trial of the cause before a jury of Shelby county, the certified transcript of a record from said chancery court, in which Andrew Henderson was complainant and Alicia Ann Kernahan was defendant, was produced as evidence, showing that said Kernahan had been divested of title to the lot in question, and that the title, by the same decree, had been vested in the said Henderson, through whom the defendants, William B. and J. O. Greenlaw, deraigned their title, as shown in this cause.
The court below pronounced this decree void, because a guardian ad litem to the said Alicia Ann Kernahan had not been appointed in the order of time in which the court thought the appointment ought to have been made.
Was the court right in this opinion? And did it have jurisdiction to sit in judgment on the proceedings of the chancery court at Somerville? Or was it not usurping the jurisdiction given alone to this honorable court?
At the time the chancery court made the decree which is pronounced void by the court at Memphis, the county of Shelby, by a statute of the State, was within the chancery district of the Somerville court. The defendant Alicia Ann Kernahan, a resident of the county of Shelby at the time, was regularly served with process, which was duly certified to by the sheriff of Shelby, and recurned to the chancery-court office. The lot of ground is also in the county of Shelby, so that the chancery court at Somerville had full jurisdiction of the person and of the subject-matter.
After acquiring this jurisdiction by statute and due process of law, this court went on to pronounce a decree in the cause, wherein it recites that this cause came on to be heard before the Hon. Andrew McCampbell, chancellor, upon bill, answer, replication, and proof, and that certain facts appeared to the court, wherefore it divested the title to the lot in question out of the defendant and vested it in the complainant.
Now, can a justice of the peace or a circuit judge of the county of Shelby in a collateral question coming up before him, pronounce this decree a nullity?
By law one has as much power to do so as the other. Neither sits as a court of appeals, to review and reverse the errors of the chancery court. And either of the courts mentioned has as full jurisdiction to pronounce the decrees of this honorable court a nullity as they have to sit in judgment on the decrees of the chancery court in such cases as those of which that court had jurisdiction.
The chancery courts of this State are courts of general jurisdiction, and their decrees, so long as they stand unreversed by this honorable court--the only court in the State empowered to reverse them--import absolute verity. No other court can go behind these decrees to revise their procedings and question the regularity of their judicial acts.
Can a circuit court or a justice's court (for both act judicially to the extent of their jurisdiction) go behind the decree of a chancery court, look into the affidavits filed in the cause, or the rules taken in the clerk's office, to find errors wherewith to set aside the decree as a nullity?
The great principle involved in judicial proceedings has long since passed into a proverb, that “records can't lie.” And what are the parts of a record in a chancery cause?
This court, I believe, in a case reported in 8 Yerg., decided that such parts were records as were required to be enrolled; to wit, bills, answers, pleas, demurrers, replications, issues of fact and verdicts thereon, orders entered on the minutes, and decrees.
The final decree made by the court having general jurisdiction over the person and the subject-matter, so long as it stands unreversed, precludes all other courts from looking out of the record to find evidence of error in the decree.
If it should be attempted to be argued that there were erroneous steps taken in the course of the proceedings in the cause, we may well reply, 1st, You must prove this by evidence before you can call on us to answer the argument, and you can not look behind the recitals in the decree, to the affidavits or rules in the clerk and master's office, to establish such fact; and, 2d, If you show by the record itself that there were errors for which a higher court would reverse on appeal, still these errors do not make a decree void. 8he case of Voorhies et al. v. The Bank of the United States is very full and clear on all these points, and is found in 10 Pet. 449et seq. See, also, Kilcrease v. Blythe, 6 Humph. 378;Stephenson v. McLean, 5 Id. 332;9 Pet. 8;6 Id. 720;5 Id. 370;2 Id. 162;1 Id. 340;Wheaton v. Sexton, 4 Wheat. 506; Blaine v. The Charles Carter, 4 Cranch, 328; Act of 1837, ch. 14, sec. 6, p. 39, Pamph. Acts.
Edwin M. Yerger, for the defendant in error:
We insist, for defendant in error, that the decree of the chancery court in the case of Henderson against her was not merely voidable, but void.
The appointment of John Delafield as guardian ad litem, by the deputy chancery clerk, was void, for the reasons:
1. That the deputy had no such power. Such appointment is a judicial act, and can only be made by the court, or by the clerk, by act of Assembly; and being so, can not delegated.
But it is said that the act of 1837 confers the power of the deputy. I do not think so. The words of the act are as follows:
etc. Acts of 1837, pp. 39, 40.
2. If the deputy had such power, still the appointment is void, for it was made before service of process on the infant. Until service of process, the infant is no party to the cause, and no step can be taken against her. 1 Swan, 484.
But it is said, although this may be true, yet the service of process afterwards, and the person before appointed continuing to act, this court may presume that he was afterwards appointed, although such fact does not appear in the record. But this court can make no such presumption.
It is necessary that there should be a decree of the court, or an order of the clerk appearing on the record, of such appointment. 3 Port. 10; 1 Dan. Ch. Pr. 204.
And it is said in Kentucky that the guardian must have accepted the appointment, and that fact should appear of record. 5 J. J. Marsh. 49; 1 Dan. Ch. Pr. 204.
The decree in the cause was made upon bill, answer, replication, and proof taken, all being based upon the validity of the appointment of Delafield as guardian ad litem. If that be void, then the decree...
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Stinson v. State
...set aside or corrected in a manner provided by law.' For the same Rule see Reinhardt v. Nealis, 101 Tenn. 169, 46 S.W. 446; Greenlaw v. Kernahan, 1857, 36 Tenn. 371. A recent expression of this Court is found in Bomar v. State ex rel. Stewart, 201 Tenn. 480, 488, 300 S.W.2d 885, to the same......
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...equal jurisdiction to another of the same jurisdiction and there relitigate the same matter. Mr. Justice Caruthers, in Greenlaw v. Kernahan, 36 Tenn. 371, 380 [(1857)], has well stated the rule and the reasons therefore, thus: "Every consideration of public policy and individual security re......
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...under our authorities. Haley v. Doochin, 186 Tenn. 137, 208 S.W.2d 756; Page v. Turcott, 179 Tenn. 491, 167 S.W.2d 350; Greenlaw v. Kernahan, 36 Tenn. 371. In addition to the foregoing authorities, it is well settled that the only mode of reviewing errors, in divorce cases is by appeal. Wil......
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