Quinn v. Wetherbee

By the Court, Temple, J.: There seems to be no conflict in the authorities as to the principles upon which Courts of equity interfere to grant relief against judgments recovered at law. It must appear that the party could not avail himself of his defense in the action at law, or that he was prevented from doing so by fraud, accident, or mistake, without fault or negligence on his part. To this effect are all the authorities cited; and the only question I deem it necessary to discuss is whether the defendants in the action sought to be set aside were guilty of negligence.

That action was brought to recover certain premises in San Francisco, and the plaintiff in that suit relied entirely upon a tax title. The assessmenfrroll was introduced, showing the assessment upon which the tax sale was based, and from that it appeared that no dollar mark was prefixed to the valuation of the property in the assessment. This assessment has in several cases since that trial been declared void by this Court. The evidence was taken down by the official reporter; and judgment having been rendered for plaintiffs, a motion for a n'ew trial was duly made, and a statement of the evidence proposed and settled. On the trial the plaintiffs in this action—defendants in that—had objected to the assessment roll on account of the defect above mentioned; but in making up their statement on motion for a new trial they adopted the report of the official reporter, who had taken down the statements from the assessment roll as though the dollar mark had been added. This error was not. observed by the counsel for the defendants in that action until twenty days after the judgment had been affirmed by this Court. It is claimed that the judg[251]ment in that case must inevitably have been reversed but for this mistake on the part of the official reporter.

It will be observed that these plaintiffs had the full benefit of all the facts in the trial of the former action in the District Court. The assessment was correctly read there. And yet, in the present action, the same Court, claiming to sit as a Court of equity, has set aside its former judgment, rendered before upon precisely the same facts which were before it in the former case, and not only without proof of accident, mistake, or fraud, but upon positive proof that there was neither. It is not claimed that the District Court, on the former trial, would have granted a new trial if the evidence had been correctly stated. The true evidence was before that Court, and neither counsel nor the.Court seem to have discovered that the statement did not accord with the facts. The reason for this most likely was that this fact was not regarded as very essential until after the deéision of this Court declaring the defect fatal to the assessment. The only effect of the mistake was that defendant in that action failed to obtain a review of his case in this Court. To obtain the benefit of such a review is the real object of this action.