Hauser v. Foley & Co.

• Decision Date: 17 December 1914
• Docket Number: 834
• Citation: Hauser v. Foley & Co., 190 Ala. 437, 67 So. 252 (Ala. 1914)
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: HAUSER v. FOLEY & CO.

67 So. 252

190 Ala. 437

HAUSER v. FOLEY & CO.

No. 834

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 17, 1914

Appeal from Chancery Court, Mobile County; Thomas H. Smith Chancellor.

Suit by J.J. Hauser against Foley & Co. to enjoin the enforcement of a judgment at law and to vacate and annul the judgment. Decree for respondent, and complainant appeals. Reversed, and decree rendered for complainant.

Foster K. Hale, Jr., of Mobile, for appellant.

D.B Cobbs, of Mobile, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

In the absence of a statute providing otherwise, a justice of the peace has no control over a judgment after the day of its rendition; and such judgment, if valid upon its face, cannot be thereafter vacated by him on the motion of a party for any sort of irregularity in fact. 24 Cyc. 596d.

In the present case the complainant could not by direct motion have procured the vacation of the judgment erroneously rendered against him by the justice of the peace, except, of course by the consent of the plaintiff therein; and his only remedy was by the statutory writ of certiorari within six months, or by bill in equity. The case of Glass v. Glass, 76 Ala. 368, 370, is not opposed to this conclusion. It was there said:

"All courts possess the inherent power to vacate, within a reasonable time, any order they may have made, which is on its face void, or so grossly irregular as not to reach the ends which the record shows were aimed at. Such correction is made, on motion, in the court where the judgment is rendered and there should be notice of such motion, unless the judgment or order is void on its face."

In the instant case the judgment is, upon the record, affirmatively regular and valid. The distinction is illustrated by the authorities cited in Hatchett v. Billingslea, 65 Ala. 16, 29, 30; Chamblee v. Cole, 128 Ala. 649, 30 So. 630. However, equity has independent and original jurisdiction of such a bill, and proceeds to its exercise without regard to the complainant's failure to resort to cumulative legal remedies. Todd v. Leslie, 171 Ala. 624, 55 So. 174; Evans v. Wilhite, 167 Ala. 587, 52 So. 845.

The only debatable question raised by the demurrer to the amended bill is whether or not it exhibits such laches in the assertion and prosecution of the complainant's right to vacate the judgment in question as to forfeit that right in a court of equity.

"The true doctrine concerning laches has never been more concisely and accurately stated than in the following language of an able living judge: 'Laches, in legal significance, is not mere delay, but delay that works a disadvantage to another. So long as parties are in the same condition, it matters little whether one presses a right promptly or slowly, within limits allowed by law; but when, knowing his rights, he takes no step to enforce them until the condition of the other party has, in good faith, become so changed that he cannot be restored to his former state, if the right be then enforced, delay becomes inequitable, and operates as estoppel against the assertion of the right. The disadvantage may come from loss of evidence, change of title, intervention of equities, and other causes; but, when a court sees negligence on one side and injury therefrom on the other, it is a ground for denial of relief.' Stiness, J., in Chase v. Chase, 20 R.I. 202, 37 A. 804." 5 Pom.Eq.Jur., § 21.

"Laches, as has been well said, does not, like limitation, grow out of the mere passage of time, but it is founded upon the inequity of permitting the claim to be enforced--an inequity founded upon some change in the condition or of the property, or the parties. Galliher v. Cadwell, 145 U.S. 368 [12 Sup.Ct. 873, 36 L.Ed, 738]." First Nat. Bank v. Nelson, 106 Ala. 535, 18 So. 154.

This...