Life & Casualty Ins. Co. v. Clark

• Decision Date: 26 November 1932
• Citation: 54 S.W.2d 965
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
• Parties: LIFE & CASUALTY INS. CO. v. CLARK et al.

54 S.W.2d 965

LIFE & CASUALTY INS. CO. v. CLARK et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

November 26, 1932.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Hamilton County; W. B. Garvin, Chancellor.

Bill by the Life & Casualty Insurance Company against J. A. Clark and others. Bill dismissed on demurrer, and complainant appeals.

Affirmed.

M. P. Estes, of Nashville, and Sizer, Chambliss & Kefauver, of Chattanooga, for complainant.

Tatum, Anderson & Tatum, of Chattanooga, for defendants.

SWIGGART, J.

This is a bill in equity, to enjoin execution of a judgment at law, on the ground that the judgment is void because rendered without evidence to support or authorize it. The chancellor dismissed the bill on demurrer, and complainant appealed.

The bill recites that the defendant Clark sued complainant at law for damages for personal injuries inflicted by one alleged to have been complainant's agent; that complainant's liability depended upon the fact of the wrongdoer's agency to act for it and no evidence of such agency was offered; that the judgment rendered against complainant by the circuit court, affirmed by the Court of Appeals, was therefore without evidence to support it and was void. The bill admits that the courts in which said judgment was rendered and affirmed had jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the suit, and of the parties, but contends that said courts were without jurisdiction to render the judgment against complainant, because of the absence of any evidence to support it.

Complainant particularly contends by its bill and by assignments of error in this court that to enforce such judgment by execution would operate to deprive it of its property without due process of law, in violation of its rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

For demurrer, the defendant says the final judgment sought to be enjoined is a final and conclusive adjudication of the fact of complainant's liability for the amount adjudged, and of the facts pleaded in the action at law as creating such liability; and that the chancery court is without jurisdiction to review the sufficiency of the evidence upon which the judgment was rendered against it.

Notwithstanding the truth of the demurrer has seemed obvious, we have examined with care the many authorities cited by complainant as sustaining its contention. None of them would authorize a decree sustaining the bill. Our own cases sustain the demurrer. Thoms v. King, 95 Tenn. 60, 66, 31 S. W. 983; Martin v. Porter, 51 Tenn. (4 Heisk.) 407, 416; Greenlaw v. Kernahan, 36 Tenn. (4 Sneed) 371, 380; Kindell v. Titus, 56 Tenn. (9 Heisk.) 727, 735.

We quote from Martin v. Porter, supra: "* * * And whether the court made its decree without any proof, or upon proof illegally taken, are matters which cannot be inquired into by another court of concurrent jurisdiction, but only by a revising court, on appeal or writ of error, or in proper case, perhaps, on bill...