36 N.Y.S. 950 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1895
It is a well-settled rule of practice that courts have sufficient control over their own judgments to amend them at any stage of an action in order to correct a mistake or conform them to the decisions actually made. Code Civ. Proc. § 723; Bank v. Morton, 67 N. Y. 199; National City Bank v. New York Gold Exch. Bank, 97 N. Y. 645. But such power is limited to corrections which do not involve matters of substance, and its exercise is not permitted to meet some legal, or even equitable, exigency to which the court’s attention may be called at a subsequent stage of the action, nor where it will limit the legal effect of a judgment. Stannard v. Hubbell, 123 N. Y. 520, 25 N. E. 1084. The correctness of the plaintiff’s contention depends, therefore, upon which of these two classes of amendments the one he complains of belongs to. This case affords a very apt illustration of an amendment which is clearly permissible. The trial court, in its second conclusion of law, determined “that the defendant Adaline Fuller is not entitled to recover any damages in this action,” and that no relief should be granted to any
The order appealed from should therefore be affirmed, with $10 costs and disbursements. All concur.