Pabst Brewing Co. v. Jensen
| Decision Date | 21 May 1897 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 10,431 - (77).,s. 10,431 - (77). |
| Citation | 68 Minn. 293 |
| Parties | PABST BREWING COMPANY v. EDWARD JENSEN.<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL> |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Austin N. McGindley, for appellant.
Wilson & Wray, for respondent.
The execution, delivery, and filing on June 29, 1895, of the mortgage, whereby Wagner mortgaged the personal property in controversy to the plaintiff to secure the payment of his notes for $1,000, a copy of such mortgage being made a part of the complaint, stood admitted by the answer. The plaintiff's right to possess the property was exclusively rested upon this mortgage, and as to this the issue made by the answer was as to the good faith of the transaction, defendant alleging that the note was without consideration, and that the mortgage was executed and delivered for the purpose of hindering, delaying, and defrauding Wagner's creditors. The reply admitted the rendition, entry, and docketing in a court of competent jurisdiction, and in due form, of the judgment set out in the answer on September 20, 1895, for the sum of $180, in favor of Pierce and against Wagner. It also admitted that on the day of the docketing of said judgment an execution was duly issued thereon, duly directed to defendant as an officer of the court, and commanding him to satisfy the amount thereof, with interest and costs, out of the debtor's personal property within the county. And that the property to recover which plaintiff brought this action was seized and levied upon and had been detained by defendant, as such officer, solely by virtue of such execution, and as the property of the judgment debtor.
With these admissions the parties proceeded to a trial by the court without a jury; the plaintiff relying upon his chattel mortgage as the basis of his right to possession, and the defendant justifying his seizure and detention of the property under the judgment and execution. No attempt was made on the argument on appeal to support the mortgage as against a creditor of the mortgagor, Wagner. It was the identical mortgage held void in fact as to creditors in Pierce v. Wagner, 64 Minn. 265, in garnishment proceedings in the same action herein involved, and also held fraudulent and void on its face as to the mortgagor's creditors in Pabst v. Butchart, 67 Minn. 191.
It is urged by appellant's counsel that the court erred in finding as a conclusion of law from the facts that the judgment alone was sufficient evidence of Wagner's indebtedness to Pierce as against the plaintiff mortgagee. The rule is well settled that a judgment, in personam, at least, of a court of competent jurisdiction, may be offered in evidence in a subsequent suit as evidence of its own existence, and of its legal effects, to prove which it is admissible for and against strangers, as well as for and against parties and privies. Of course, it may be impeached for fraud and collusion, and perhaps on other grounds, but nothing of that character was suggested as to the judgment in question. In 1 Greenl. Ev. § 538, the rule is stated that the judgment is the only proper legal evidence of itself, and is conclusive evidence of the fact of the rendition of the judgment, and of all the legal consequences resulting from that fact, whoever may be the parties to the suit in which it is offered in evidence; and in Frost v. St. Paul, 57 Minn. 325, 59 N. W. 308, this rule was cited with approval. Mr. Stephens, in his Digest, article 40, states the doctrine thus:
"All judgments whatever are conclusive proof as against all persons of the existence of that state of things which they actually effect when the existence of the state of things so effected is a fact in issue, or is, or is deemed to be, relevant to the issue."
The rule as thus stated was relied on in Kurtz v. St. Paul, 61 Minn. 18, 63 N. W. 1. If anything further is...
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