Standard Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. Anthony Wholesale Grocery Co.

• Decision Date: 19 December 1916
• Docket Number: 6640.
• Citation: Standard Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. Anthony Wholesale Grocery Co., 162 P. 451, 62 Okla. 242, 1916 OK 1032 (Okla. 1916)
• Parties: STANDARD SAVINGS & LOAN ASS'N v. ANTHONY WHOLESALE GROCERY CO.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

162 P. 451

62 Okla. 242, 1916 OK 1032

STANDARD SAVINGS & LOAN ASS'N v. ANTHONY WHOLESALE GROCERY CO.

No. 6640.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

December 19, 1916

Rehearing Denied Jan. 23, 1917.

Syllabus by the Court.

The first fundamental requisite to the validity of a judgment is that it should have been rendered by a court having jurisdiction, for without jurisdiction the courts can do nothing, and a judgment rendered without jurisdiction is a mere nullity. The jurisdiction required is of three sorts (1) Jurisdiction of the parties; (2) jurisdiction of the general subject-matter; (3) jurisdiction of the particular matter which the judgment professes to decide.

A judgment, which is entirely outside of the issues in the case and upon a matter not submitted to the court for its determination, is a nullity, and may be vacated and set aside at any time on motion of a party, or any person affected thereby. And any collateral or subsequent proceeding dependent upon the validity of such judgment may, in like manner, be vacated upon proper motion by any person affected thereby.

S., a defendant in a foreclosure suit, filed a cross-petition alleging that H. M. C., a codefendant, was indebted to it upon notes and a real estate mortgage; that N. A. C. had or claimed some interest in the real estate junior and inferior to the claim of S., and praying that the interest of N. A. C be adjudged inferior. N. A. C. made no appearance. The court thereupon rendered judgment, decreeing the interest of N. A C. to be junior to the interest of S., and also rendered a personal judgment for the amount of the indebtedness against N. A. C. Held, that that part of the judgment fixing a personal liability upon N. A. C. is outside of the particular jurisdiction of the court, and upon a matter not submitted to the court for determination and is a nullity.

Commissioners' Opinion, Division No. 4. Error from District Court, Woods County; W. C. Crow, Judge.

Action by the Woods County Union Bank against Harry M. Circle and others and the Standard Savings & Loan Association, which filed a cross-petition. The Anthony Wholesale Grocery Company moved to quash and set aside the levy of execution of the Standard Savings & Loan Association. Motion sustained, and the Association brings error. Affirmed.

H. A. Noah, of Alva, for plaintiff in error.

E. W. Snoddy, of Alva, for defendant in error.

EDWARDS C.

The woods County Union Bank filed a suit against the defendants, Harry M. Circle, Nannie A. Circle, Standard Savings & Loan Association, and George W. Oakes, for judgment on a note and to foreclose a mortgage on certain real estate not involved in this action. The defendant Standard Savings & Loan Association filed its answer and cross-petition, alleging that on April 30, 1910, the defendant H. M. Circle, being the same person as Harry M. Circle, was a single man, and had borrowed from the said Standard Savings & Loan Association the sum of $750, and had executed and delivered to the said association a promissory note in said sum, payable in installments, and to secure the same had executed a mortgage on certain real estate in the town of Alva, and concluding with the allegation that there was due and unpaid from said H. M. Circle to said Standard Savings & Loan Association the sum of $632.72, and prayed judgment therefor, and alleging that the claims of the other defendants in and to said real estate are junior and inferior to the plaintiff's lien. Said cross-petition prays for judgment in its favor against the plaintiff and the other defendants, finding and decreeing that the lien and claim of this defendant, Standard Savings & Loan Association, against the real property described in the petition and in its said answer, be adjudged senior and superior to the lien and claim of the plaintiff and of the other defendants therein named. The defendants Harry M. Circle, Nannie A. Circle, and George W. Oakes made no appearance of any kind, and in due time a judgment by default was rendered in favor of the plaintiff, Woods County Union Bank, and against the defendants H. M. and Nannie A. Circle in the sum of $232.35, attorney's fees and costs and a judgment on the answer and cross-petition of the Standard Savings & Loan Association was entered, a part of which is as follows:

"And the court further finds that there is due from the said Harry M. Circle and Nannie A. Circle, to the said defendant and cross-petitioner, Standard Savings & Loan Association, the principal sum of $632.72, with interest thereon at the rate of 10 per cent. per annum from March 15, 1912."

The court in said judgment further decreed that in case said judgment be not paid within six months the plaintiff would be entitled to execution, and in the event of the failure of the plaintiff to sue out execution the cross-petitioner, Standard Savings & Loan Association, might have execution; said judgment further decreed as follows:

"It is further ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this court that if the sale of said lands and tenements fail to bring sufficient sum to satisfy the aforesaid judgments in favor of the said plaintiff and in favor of the said defendant the Standard Savings & Loan Association, then that said plaintiff, the Woods County Union Bank, and said defendant the Standard Savings & Loan Association, and each of them, have a deficiency judgment against the said Harry M. Circle and Nannie A. Circle for such sum as shall then remain due and unpaid upon the aforesaid judgments."

After the expiration of six months an execution to collect a deficiency was issued on said judgment of the Standard Savings & Loan Association and against the defendants Harry M. Circle and Nannie A. Circle, which was levied upon certain real estate in the town of Alva, whereupon the defendant in error the Anthony Wholesale Grocery Company, filed its motion to quash and set aside said levy, setting out as grounds therefor that the property levied upon was, and for a long time prior thereto had been, the property of the movant, as the record owner thereof, and was not the property of the judgment debtor. Upon the trial of said cause there was added the further ground that the judgment upon which the said execution was issued was void and a nullity as against said Nannie A. Circle. This motion was tried by the court, and a judgment entered, in part, as follows:

"And now on this 30th day of January, A. D. 1914, same being one of the days of the October, 1913, term of the above-named court and the said court being in session, the above-entitled matter coming regularly on for hearing upon the motion of Anthony Wholesale Grocery Company to quash the levy heretofore made upon certain real property claimed by the said Anthony Wholesale Grocery Company, to satisfy the judgment herein rendered in favor of Standard Savings & Loan Association, and the parties being present, the movant by its attorney, E. W. Snoddy, and the said Standard Savings & Loan Association by its attorney, H. A. Noah, whereupon, the movant having read its said motion, offers in evidence a certain contract in writing between the said Anthony Wholesale Grocery Company and Nannie A. Circle, to which offer the said Standard Savings & Loan Association objected which objection was by the court overruled, to which order and ruling of the court the said Standard Savings & Loan Association then and there excepted, whereupon the movant offered in evidence the cross-petition herein of the said Standard Savings & Loan Association and the journal entry of judgment herein, to which offer the said Standard Savings & Loan Association objected, which objection was by the court overruled, to which order and ruling of the court the said Standard Savings & Loan Association then and there excepted, and thereupon, and upon argument by attorneys representing both parties, the court found that the said judgment, in so far as the same purported to be a personal judgment against the said Nannie A.

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