Wellman v. Bethea

• Citation: 213 F. 367
• Parties: WELLMAN v. BETHEA.
• Decision Date: 10 April 1914
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina

213 F. 367

WELLMAN v. BETHEA.

United States District Court, E.D. South Carolina.

April 10, 1914

Mitchell & Smith, of Charleston, S.C., for plaintiff.

Gibson & Muller, of Dillon, S.C., and Willcox & Willcox, of Florence, S.C., for defendant.

CONNOR District Judge.

This is a petition, or a motion, in the cause by defendant, seeking relief from a judgment rendered herein at the special January term, 1913. The motion is based upon the provisions of section 225, Code of Civil Procedure of South Carolina, which provides that:

'The court may likewise, in its discretion, and upon such terms as may be just * * * at any time within one year after notice thereof, relieve a party from a judgment, order, or other proceeding, taken against him,' by 'surprise or excusable neglect, and may supply an omission in any proceeding.'

Defendant contends that, under the statute (section 914, U.S. Rev Stat. (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 684), 4 Fed.Stat.Anno. 563) power to grant this motion is conferred upon the federal courts which provides that:

'The practice, pleadings, and forms, and modes of proceeding in civil causes, * * * in the Circuit * * * Courts, shall conform, as near as may be, to the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding existing at the time in like causes in the courts * * * of the state within which such Circuit or District Courts are held, any rule of court to the contrary notwithstanding.' The motion is resisted by plaintiff, insisting that the terms 'practice, pleadings and forms and modes of procedure' refer only to those steps which are taken prior to, and at the trial of, civil actions; that the statute does not confer power upon the federal courts to vacate, set aside, or modify their judgments after the adjournment of the term at which they are rendered. It is insisted that the relief demanded upon this motion pertains to power and not procedure, and that this is vested in the equitable jurisdiction of the court and can be invoked only by an original suit in equity.

It appears from the record herein that the plaintiff sued defendant, as clerk of the court of Dillon county, in this district, and 'as the duly qualified administrator of the estate of John H. Bethea, deceased. ' She states, as her cause of action, that the defendant's intestate wrongfully and unlawfully caused the death of her husband while in the state of Delaware, whereby, according to the statutes in force in that state, she became entitled to sue for and recover the damages sustained by her, by reason of the wrongful and unlawful act of defendant's intestate. She sued for $25,000 damages, alleged to have been sustained, etc.

Defendant, in his answer, admitted that his intestate caused the death of plaintiff's husband and denied that plaintiff was entitled to recover the amount of damages demanded. Neither the complaint nor the answer contained any averment in regard to the amount of assets which went into the hands of defendant, or the disposition thereof. When the cause came on for trial, defendant's counsel consented that the jury, then impaneled, should return a verdict fixing plaintiff's damage at $4,000. Upon this verdict judgment was rendered by the court that:

'Said Sarah C. Wellman, the plaintiff, recover of said John C. Bethea, clerk of court, as administrator of the estate of John H. Bethea, deceased, the sum of $4,000, so found, with $30 cost.'

Upon this judgment an execution was issued and returned unsatisfied except to the extent of $28 'collected from John C. Bethea, administrator. ' Plaintiff, thereupon instituted an action against defendant and the Atlantic Insurance Company, surety on his bond 'as clerk of the court and as administrator. ' In her complaint, plaintiff sets up the aforesaid judgment. She alleges that, after defendant 'had knowledge and notice of plaintiff's claim and suit,' one M. Helen Medlin brought suit against him as administrator of John H. Bethea for an alleged demand of $1,440, due by said John Bethea, for board, etc., and that defendant permitted judgment to be rendered against him for said demand and paid the full amount thereof from the assets in his hands as administrator. She alleges that defendant wrongfully paid such judgment, and, 'by reason of the further fact that said defendant did not plead plene administravit or insufficient assets to the suit of this plaintiff, the said defendant is personally liable to the full amount of said judgment of $4,000 with interest. ' No devistavit is alleged other than the payment of said judgment. This second action is based upon the theory that the judgment in this action, in the absence of a plea of plene administravit, fixes defendant with assets to the full amount of the judgment and the failure to pay same entitles her to a judgment against him and his surety for the full amount thereof. Defendant, in his affidavit herein, avers that he is advised that his failure to plead plene administravit fixes him with assets to the full amount of the judgment. He asks, in this motion, that the judgment be vacated or so modified that he may file an amended or supplemental answer, setting up the plea, and that, if issue is joined thereon, the same may be tried. He avers that his failure to file the plea was the result of excusable mistake. Plaintiff, resisting the motion, relies upon the principle that a federal court has no power to vacate or modify a judgment after the adjournment of the term at which it is rendered. Defendant concedes the general principle. He also concedes that the facts upon which he relies for relief do not bring the case within any of the exceptions thereto, but insists that the provisions of section 225, Code of South Carolina, confers power upon the court to grant the relief demanded.

In Bronson v. Schulten, 104 U.S. 410, 26 L.Ed. 797, Mr. Justice Miller, after stating the principle that judgments are under the control of the court, which pronounces them, during the term at which they are rendered, or entered of record, and may be set aside, vacated, or modified, says:

'But it is a rule equally well established that after the term has ended all final judgments and decrees of the court pass beyond its control, unless steps be taken during that term, by motion or otherwise, to set aside, modify, or correct them; * * * and this is placed upon the ground that the case has passed beyond the control of the court.'

The learned justice gives an interesting history of the exceptions to the rule and others which 'crept into practice in a large number of the state courts, ' saying:

'This practice has been founded in the courts of many of the states on statutes which conferred a prescribed and limited control over the judgments of a court after the expiration of the term at which it was rendered. * * * It can easily be seen how this practice is justified in courts of the states where a system has been adopted which amalgamates the equitable and common-law jurisdiction in one form of action, as most of the rules of procedure do. * * * The question relates to the power of the courts and not to the mode of procedure. It is whether there exists in the court the authority to set aside, vacate, and modify its final judgment after the term at which they were rendered; and this authority can neither be conferred upon nor withheld from the courts of the United States by the statutes of a state or the practice of its courts.'

This case has been frequently cited and uniformly approved. Phillips v. Negley, 117 U.S. 665, 6 Sup.Ct. 901, 29 L.Ed. 1013; Hickman v. Ft. Scott, 141 U.S. 415, 12 Sup.Ct. 9, 35 L.Ed. 775; Tubman v. B. & O.R.R., 190 U.S. 38, 23 Sup.Ct. 777, 47 L.Ed. 946.

In Re Metropolitan Trust Co., 218 U.S. 312, 31 Sup.Ct. 18, 54 L.Ed. 1051, Mr. Justice Hughes says:

'Nor could the court exercise the general power which it possesses to * * * set aside its orders or decrees prior to the expiration of the term at which the final decree is entered.'

An examination of the decisions of the Circuit Courts and Circuit Courts of Appeal, with but two apparent exceptions, hereafter noted, discloses a uniform agreement with Bronson v. Schulten, supra. It is not necessary to extend this opinion by quotations from the large number of decisions found in the Federal Reporter. They are cited and discussed in Judge McDowell's dissenting opinion in Virginia T. & C. Steel & Iron Co. v. Harris, 151 F. 430, 80 C.C.A. 658. In United States v. Wallace (D.C.) 46 F. 569, Judge Simonton (District Court of the Fourth Circuit) said:

'No court of the United States can revise or amend its own final decree or judgment for errors of fact or of law after the end of the term in which such decree or judgment was rendered'-- citing, among other cases, Bronson v. Schulten, supra; Foster's Fed. Practice, Sec. 379.

In Hughes, Fed. Proc. (2d Ed.) 412, it is said:

'While the federal courts will follow the state practice as to the mere form of the judgment, their control over it from that time forward is regulated by the federal decisions and statutes, and not by the state practice. They may correct the record, after the term, in mere clerical errors, but in no other way. Under the federal practice and decisions a judgment cannot be set aside after the term during which it is rendered, though the statute may provide summary remedies by motion for the purpose of regulating judgments in its own courts.'

These authoritative decisions undoubtedly hold that the court has no power or authority to make any order affecting the validity or legal effect of a judgment after the adjournment of the term at which it is rendered. We are, however confronted with the decisions in Va. T. & C. Steel & Iron Co. v. Harris, 151 F. 428, 80 C.C.A. 658 (C.C.A. 4th Cir.),...