76 P. 990 | Ariz. | 1904
The Gila Bend Reservoir and Irrigation Company brought suit in the court below, alleging that it was the owner in fee simple of a certain irrigating canal, with its branches, certain water-rights connected therewith and certain tracts of real estate in township 2 north, range 5 west, Maricopa County, and asking that its title be quieted as against the Gila Water Company and certain other defendants, who were alleged to claim interests adverse to it in said property. The Gila Water Company answered, setting up title in itself, and asked that its title be quieted as against the plaintiff. The other defendants filed disclaimers, and were dismissed from the suit. The issues were tried by the court below, and judgment rendered in favor of the Gila Water Company, dismissing plaintiff’s complaint, and decreeing the said Gila Water Company to be the owner in fee of the property in controversy. The Gila Bend Reservoir and Irrigation Company moved for a new trial, which was denied, and from this ruling and the judgment has appealed to this court.
Upon the trial the Gila Water Company introduced in evidence, to sustain its claim of title to the property in controversy, the record and judgment in a suit in which one W. H. Linn and others were plaintiffs, and the Gila Bend Reservoir and Irrigation Company and others were defendants, and known on the docket of the district court of Maricopa County, where the suit was brought as case No. 1996. The plaintiff, the Gila Bend Reservoir and Irrigation 'Company, objected to the introduction of this judgment and
It appears that in the district court of Maricopa County, in the year 1893, the appellant brought suit against the Peoria Canal Company and the Arizona Construction Company, and applied for a receiver therein to take possesion of the. property in controversy in this action. Thereafter the court appointed one James McMillan as such receiver, who took possession of the property, and, by leave of the court, issued a large amount of receiver’s certificates to meet the expense of necessary improvements upon the property. This suit was docketed as No. 1728. Pending this action one W. H. Linn and others brought suit in the district court of Maricopa County against the appellant and other defendants, alleging in their complaint, among other facts, the pendency of action No. 1728, the appointment of the receiver, and the issuing of the receiver’s certificates, and praying, among other things, that the assets of the Gila Bend Reservoir and Irrigation Company be marshaled, and that the receiver take possession of, and be directed to sell, the property of the said company, and from the proceeds of said sale pay the debts adjudged due against it. All the parties to this suit, including the Gila Bend Reservoir and Irrigation Company, appeared and answered. A trial was had, and judgment was rendered, in which the receiver was directed to sell the property. The record further discloses that a sale was made under this judgment by the receiver, which was affirmed by the court, and a deed executed by the said receiver to the purchaser, who was one of the grantors of the appellee. This judgment was appealed from to this court, where it was affirmed, and subsequently an appeal was taken by the appellant to the supreme court of the United States, where the judgment of this court was affirmed. Gila Bend etc. Co. v. Linn, 171 U. S. 685, 18 Sup. Ct. 942. The latter suit in the court below was docketed as No. 1996. The objection which the appellant urged in the court below to the judgment in cause No. 1996 was that it appears upon the face of the record that
The trial court did not err for another reason. The failure of the court in case No. 1996 to enter a formal order extending the receivership from cause No. 1728 to cause No. 1996 was not one which rendered the judgment complained of void upon its face, but was a mere irregularity of practice, which should have been taken advantage of during the pendency of the action. As said by Mr. Justice Miller in Cooper v. Reynolds, 10 Wall, 308, 19 L. Ed. 931, “It is of no avail to show that there are errors in the record,, unless they be such as to prove that the court has no jurisdiction in the case, or that the judgment rendered was beyond its power. This principle has been often held by this court and by all courts, and it takes rank as an axiom of the law.” In Cornett v. Williams, 20 Wall. 226, 22 L. Ed. 254, we find this expression of the supreme court: “The settled rule of
The judgment is affirmed.