People v. Lafarge

Heydeneeldt, Justice, delivered the opinion of the court.

This was a bill in equity, to set aside a judgment which was improperly obtained; the reasons assigned are, that there was no cause of action and no notice to the parties. This remedy is well recognized in all courts having chancery jurisdiction, and the case made out by the complainants is one which fully entitles them to the interposition of the court.

The Chancellor having heard the evidence, and decided that the parties were entitled to the relief sought, we see nothing, either in the pleadings or statement of the case, which will authorize this court to disturb the decree.

Affirmed, with costs.

Wells, Justice, concurred, and delivered the following opinion.

• The record and the statement agreed upon between the parties, amply disclose a state of facts that would entitle the defendants to relief from- the judgment obtained against them in the court below; and the only questions remaining for us to consider are, first: Whether the District Court has the power to grant [134]such relief? and second: Whether, admitting that it had such power, a proper case was made out for the exercise of it?

The power of the court, under the 68th Section of the Practice Act, to relieve the defendants from the judgment, in case the same were taken against them through their inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect, is expressly admitted by the District Attorney, in the grounds of appeal set forth by him in the record, but the Attorney-General controverts this doctrine by his associate, and insists that it has been repeatedly intimated, and in one case decided in this court, by an opinion delivered by Judge Murray, that after the term at which a judgment is rendered against a defendant regularly summoned, the District Court has no power to set aside a judgment of a previous term. We have no recollection of such a decision, and as the Attorney-General does not cite the case relied upon by him, no opportunity is afforded us of examining it; but if he cites correctly, the decision has been overruled in Kewen v. Biddleman, May Term, 1852, wherein Judge Murray concurred, and in which the very opposite doctrine was held; indeed, the language of the act is too explicit to admit of such a restrictive conclusion as the Attorney-General would have placed upon it. By the last Practice Act, now repealed, Section 68, the court had power to set aside a judgment upon the same grounds, at any time within one year after notice thereof; by the present act, the like power is given, and the court is not limited in the exercise of it to any particular period. So far, then, from abridging, the legislature intended by the present act to enlarge the powers of the court in this respect, and to relieve a party from an unjust or improperly obtained judgment, at any time, upon good cause being shown. The power thus extended to the court is a safe and salutary one, and, indeed, is absolutely necessary for the due administration of justice. In the interior, or remote districts, the terms are of brief duration, lasting sometimes only a single day, or a week at most, and the districts embrace a wide extent of territory ; if the doctrine contended for by the Attorney-General were to obtain, a defendant would be remediless where an oppressive and unjust judgment had been obtained by default against him, and that,