Le Mesnager v. Variel

Action by Trustee against Executor—Money Due under Decree of Distribution-—Jurisdiction of Superior Court—Pinal Judgment. —An action brought against a surviving executor of the will of a deceased person to recover a sum of money due to a trustee for certain beneficiaries, under the terms of the decree of distribution of the estate, is authorized by the express provisions of section 1666 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Where the amount sued for was sufficient, the superior court had jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the action; and where the defendant appeared and demurred to and answered the complaint, it had jurisdiction of his person, and a judgment rendered in that court in favor of the trustee, from which no appeal was taken, became final and conclusive as to any question of mere error.

Id.—Action to Set Aside Judgment—Insufficient Complaint.—A complaint in an action to set aside such judgment, which contains no allegation of fraud, accident, or mistake in the obtaining of the judgment, and which seeks merely to assail the complaint in the original action as not being sufficient to sustain the judgment, does not show any ground for relief in equity against the judgment.

Id.—Jurisdiction to Decide—Sufficiency of Complaint in Original Action.—One who has appeared and defended an original action can never maintain a separate action for the mere purpose of reversing the rulings of the court in the original action upon any question which it had jurisdiction to decide; and it having had jurisdiction to determine the question of the sufficiency of the complaint in the original action raised by the demurrer thereto, if it determined it erroneously, the only remedy was by appeal from the judgment, and that question cannot be raised in an action to set aside the judgment.

Id.—Belief in Equity-—Indirect Attack upon Judgment.—An action for relief in equity is not a direct attack upon the judgment in the same sense as an appeal therefrom. Though the attack in equity, if sufficient, is not collateral, it is indirect, in the sense that the legal validity of the judgment is admitted, and the issue to be tried is whether the plaintiff is entitled to have the court of equity interpose in his behalf.