Haight v. Stuart

• Decision Date: 25 September 1930
• Docket Number: No. 4826.,4826.
• Parties: HAIGHT et al. v. STUART et al.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

31 S.W.2d 241

HAIGHT et al. v. STUART et al.

No. 4826.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

September 25, 1930.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Howell County; Will H. D. Green, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Suit by W. R. Haight and others against F. J. Stuart and others. From order sustaining plaintiffs' motion to set aside a judgment entered against them, defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

J. N. Burroughs, of West Plains, for appellants.

Homer Rinehart, of West Plains, and Richard A. Jones, of St. Louis, for respondents.

COX, P. J.

This is an appeal from the action of the circuit court in sustaining a motion by respondents to set aside a judgment against them in favor of appellants. The motion to set aside the judgment was filed at the next term after the judgment was rendered and the contention of appellants is that it came too late and for that reason the court erred in sustaining said motion.

The general rule is that judgments are in the breast of the court during the term at which they are rendered and during that term may be changed or set aside entirely, but, after the term goes by, the court loses jurisdiction and cannot set aside or change a judgment entered at a former term, but there are well-recognized exceptions to this rule. Want of jurisdiction over the person or authority to enter a personal judgment against a party at the time it was entered is one of the recognized conditions that will authorize a court to set aside a personal judgment at a term subsequent to that at which the judgment was entered against the complaining party. White v. McFarland, 148 Mo. App. 338, 128 S. W. 23.

This suit by plaintiffs against defendants when first begun was an action to dissolve a banking corporation known as Bradleyville State Bank. On trial the court ordered its dissolution and appointed plaintiffs as trustees to wind up the affairs of the bank and make distribution of its remaining assets to the stockholders. The defendants appealed that case to this court, where the judgment was affirmed. See 220 Mo. App. 78, 278 S. W. 1091. Afterward motions were filed in the circuit court by defendants asking that plaintiffs be required to make report to the court and account to the court and defendants and show what assets of the bank they had in their hands and asking the court to require them to pay to defendants what was due them as stockholders of the dissolved bank. The matter was continued and passed over by the court until, at the February term, 1929, a personal judgment was rendered by the court against plaintiffs, the material part of which is as follows: "It is therefore considered, ordered and adjudged by the court that the defendant F. J. Stuart have and recover from the plaintiffs, W. R. Haight, Amy R. Haight, Charles H. V. Lewis, S. G. Ramey and George Hilton, the sum of $1,382.76, and that the interpleader, August Schlafley, have and recover of the said plaintiffs the sum of $664.90; that Amy R. Haight have and recover of the said plaintiffs the sum of $399.00, and that Charles H. V. Lewis have and recover of the said plaintiffs the sum of...