170 Iowa 568 | Iowa | 1915
A vehicle belonging to Shaver was injured in a collision with a locomotive belonging to the railway company, and he brought suit in the district court of Polk county to recover damages. Said action was begun for the January, 1911, term of the court, and the railway company appeared thereto and filed an answer, taking issue upon the material allegations of the petition. On June 10, 1913, considerably more than two years after issues joined in said cause, the court, in accordance with the practice prevailing therein, gave public notice that on June 20th and 21st, the calendar
Authority of a court to vacate a judgment after the term at which it is rendered is statutory (Code, title 20, chapter 1) ; and to give the court jurisdiction, the party against whom the motion or application is made must be served with notice after the manner of original notices for the commencement of an action (Code Sec. 4095). Without such service of notice or its acceptance or waiver, or an appearance by the party entitled thereto, an order vacating such judgment is necessarily void. Even where the order of vacation of . a final judgment
“Final judgment had been rendered. Ordinarily, when this has been done, the case is at an end, except that a motion for a new trial may be filed within three days thereafter. While it may be that the court had jurisdiction of the defendant during such period for the purposes of such a motion, the defendant was not bound to anticipate that the plaintiff would withdraw his election to stand on the petition, or that the court would permit him to do so and file an amended petition, and that the court would set aside the final judgment previously entered. The case having been disposed of by the rendition of the final judgment, the court ceased to have jurisdiction over the defendant in the action, and the defendant’s attorney was not bound to remain in court, but could well leave as he did. It may be that the order was one that should have been made, and that substantial justice required the court in this instance to do so. But this is not the controlling consideration. The controlling question is one of jurisdiction, and it is evident, if the court did not have jurisdiction of the defendant in the action, that the expunging order is absolutely void. As the order was made in the absence of defendant in the action, no exception could be taken, and therefore an appeal would have been ineffectual. It is*573 true, the defendant, when it obtained knowledge of the order, might have moved the court at the succeeding term to set it aside. But the defendant was not bound to do this if the court did not have jurisdiction to make the order at the time it did so. ’ ’
In Callanan v. Lewis, 79 Iowa 452, an order entered without notice to the opposite party, setting aside a judgment at a former term, was held to be “absolutely void.” In Perry v. Kaspar, 113 Iowa 268, a judgment entry was modified or changed at a subsequent term by striking out the allowance of an attorney’s fee which had been erroneously made. No notice was given to the other party, and the failure so to do was held to be a jurisdictional defect, “even though the motion under which such correction was made was filed before the end of the term at which the judgment was entered, it not having been filed until after the judgment was fully entered on the record.” We find no approved• precedent upon which the order of the district court can be sustained. The eases cited for the respondent go no further than to uphold the rule that the court has inherent authority to set aside a judgment of dismissal or to correct an error in its record, but this authority is not unlimited and may be exercised only where the court has jurisdiction of the person or party adversely affected by such order. When a judgment of dismissal has been entered, the action is at an end. How far the court may properly go in modifying or vacating such judgment at the same term without notice, we need not here consider or decide. In this respect, the courts of the several states are not in harmony. It is, however, quite universally held that such authority extends no farther than the term at which the judgment is entered, and until jurisdiction has been re-acquired by proper notice, a subsequent order of vacation and reinstatement of the cause for trial is void. See authorities already cited. If other authoritative precedent be thought needed, it is found in the recent case of Owen v.
Unless we are to disregard the statute and overturn all our precedents upon this question and depart from the rule approved by all courts, the necessity of notice to the validity of an order of vacation such as we have here to consider must be recognized. Indeed, any -other rule would be manifestly unjust. When final judgment has been entered in an action, the parties thereto ought to be at liberty to regard it as an end of the case and to be relieved from the apprehension of further proceedings therein save upon due notice. To so hold imposes hardship upon no one and affords a safeguard against undue advantage by one party over another.
In the Owen case, counsel for defendant were not only present when the order for vacation was entered, but also objected thereto at the time; yet we said, “There is no presumption that they had any authority to appear at that stage of the proceedings. The case had been settled at a prior term and they had no implied authority to appear at a subsequent one. Indeed, formal notice to them of the application to vacate would not have been binding on their clients. ’ ’ Very respectable authorities may be cited holding otherwise on this proposition, but the recognized rule in the courts of this state is as above indicated.
Further discussion is unnecessary. ¥e are united in the opinion that the court was without jurisdiction to consider the plaintiff’s application for reinstatement of the action for trial. It is therefore ordered that the writ of certiorari be sustained and the order made by the trial court vacating the judgment of dismissal and the entry of damages against the defendant be and the same are hereby — Annulled.