Linville v. Chenoweth
| Decision Date | 16 March 1949 |
| Docket Number | 17804. |
| Citation | 84 N.E.2d 473,119 Ind.App. 515 |
| Parties | LINVILLE et al. v. CHENOWETH. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Appeal from Hamilton Circuit Court; Tom R. White, Judge.
Campbell & Campbell, of Noblesville, and Francis A. Shaw, of Muncie, for appellants.
Carl Lee Compton, of Indianapolis, and Gentry & Day, of Noblesville, for appellee.
The principal question in this case is the validity of a judgment rendered by the Marion County Municipal Court, which judgment was subjected to attack in a later action in another court.
Appellee as plaintiff, brought her action in the Marion County Municipal Court, Room 2, against James C. Chenoweth and Millie J. Chenoweth, husband and wife. The complaint alleged that the defendants agreed to pay plaintiff $5 per week, and her board and room, in exchange for housework, nursing, and laundry, and that the defendant Millie J. Chenoweth, as evidence of such agreement, executed a written instrument to that effect. The sheriff's return on the summons stated that it had been served on the defendants by leaving a true copy at their last and usual place of residence. The defendants failing to appear, judgment was rendered on default. No effort has ever been made in the Marion County Municipal Court to set this judgment aside, nor has it ever been paid.
At the time the complaint was filed against James C. Chenoweth and Millie J. Chenoweth, they owned certain real estate as tenants by the entireties. Prior to the judgment they conveyed this real estate to Odd Fellows Home Association.
Thereafter appellee commenced an action, which was tried in the Johnson Circuit Court, against James C. Chenoweth and Odd Fellows Home Association, to set aside this conveyance. Millie J Chenoweth was then deceased. The complaint recited the judgment of the Marion County Municipal Court, and alleged that at the time of the conveyance James C. Chenoweth had no other property subject to execution, and was insolvent; that the conveyance was made with intent to hinder, cheat, delay and defraud his creditors, including appellee. The answers were in general denial. There was no special finding of facts. Trial resulted in a general finding and judgment against the plaintiff, appellee herein, and in favor of the defendants to that action.
Thereafter Odd Fellows Home Association reconveyed the real estate to James C. Chenoweth, thereby subjecting it to the lien of the Marion County Municipal Court judgment, if that judgment was valid. He, in turn, conveyed it to the appellants herein, the deed to appellants reading that it was 'Subject to all liens and taxes.'
Appellee instituted the present action by a complaint which was dismissed before trial. Appellants by their cross complaint sought to quiet title to the real estate involved in the conveyances above mentioned. Appellee, by counter-claim, asserted that she had a valid and subsisting lien on the real estate by virtue of the judgment of the Marion County Municipal Court. By further pleadings appellants alleged that appellee is barred and estopped from asserting such judgment lien by reason of the judgment of the Johnson Circuit Court. Following trial, the Hamilton Circuit Court found against appellants on their cross complaint and in favor of appellee on her counterclaim, and that the judgment of the Marion County Municipal Court was a valid and subsisting lien on the real estate.
Errors assigned are the overruling of appellants' motion for a new trial, and motion to open judgment filed under Rule 1-8.
The appellants contend that the Johnson Circuit Court judgment was a complete bar to all subsequent actions based on the Marion County Municipal Court judgment, against the defendants therein, and against appellants as successors in title to said defendants; that it precludes appellee on every ground actually presented in the Johnson Circuit Court, and every ground which might have been presented. Appellants further contend that the validity of the Marion County Municipal Court judgment was in issue; that this judgment was void on its face, and therefore subject to collateral attack, because (1) the defendants did not owe the debt upon which the judgment was based, (2) that the complaint upon which it was based did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, (3) that the complaint on its face showed that the oral agreement sued on was within the statute of frauds as to one defendant. They further contend that the judgment was void because, as they alleged, summons was not served at the actual last and usual place of residence of the defendants, and that the Hamilton Circuit Court failed to accord full faith and credit to the Johnson Circuit Court judgment.
The following words of the Supreme Court in Town of Flora v. Indiana Service Corporation, 1944, 222 Ind. 253, 256, 53 N.E.2d 161, 163, are applicable to this case:
'It is necessary that we have, on the outset, a clear understanding of the principles of law upon which appellees rest their case. There are two well defined branches of the rule of res judicata. The subject has often been confused by the loose use of descriptive terms. One branch of the subject deals with prior adjudication as a bar. Under it a cause of action finally determined between the parties on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction, cannot again be litigated by new proceedings before the same or any other tribunal, except by way of review according to law. Such a judgment or decree so rendered is a complete bar to any subsequent action on the same claim or cause of action, between the same parties, or those in privity with them. Every question which was within the issues, and which, under the issues, might have been proved, will be presumed to have been proved and adjudicated. Jordan v. Sisson, 1924, 82 Ind.App. 128, 141 N.E. 881. This rule is perhaps best described as 'estoppel by judgment.'
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