11 Neb. 131 | Neb. | 1881
The pleadings in this case, are voluminous, and in order to a proper understanding of the question involved, it will be necessary to recite them at tedious length.
The real estate in question was owned by C. Maxon Northrup, and while so owned by him, several judgments at law were recovered against' him by different parties, among others the plaintiffs in error he.re, which judgments it is claimed by them became and were liens upon said real estate. Said Northrup conveyed said real estate in separate parcels and moieties to Susan F. Wells and Hattie E. Wells, and took mortgages back for the purchase money for the same. Afterwards the said Susan F. Wells conveyed her part and moiety of the said real estate to the said Hattie E. Wells, who afterwards conveyed the said real estate to the defendant in error, Jerusha A. Ellis. The defendant in error, James K. Ellis, is the husband of the said Jerusha A. Ellis, and J. W. Eller is the trustee of an express trust out of the said real estate.
On the 18th of October, 1877, the said Northrup commenced two actions in the district court of Fillmore county, for the purpose of foreclosing the said mortgages, one against the said Susan F. Wells and husband, the other against the said Hattie E. Wells
The said petition further states that in the said two causes of C. Maxon Northrup vs. Charles Wells and others, and same plaintiff vs. George Wells and others, which said causes were referred to W. H. Morris as referee, as hereinbefore stated, the said referee found the following facts relative to the interest of Hapgood & Co., plaintiffs in error herein, in each of said causes: “ That there is due the defendants Hapgood & Company the sum of $569.16, and that the same is a first lien on the
The answer of the defendants, Hapgood & Co., sets up the recovery by them of the three several judgments against the said C. Maxon Northrup in the probate court of Eillmore county. That the said court then and there had jurisdiction of the person of the said Northrup, and that said judgments were regularly rendered and entered. That on the 3d day of July, 1875, the said Hapgood & Co. caused transcripts of said judgments to be filed in the office of the clerk of the' district court in and for said county, and to be duly entered upon the judgment record in and for said county, and the said Northrup was then the owner of said south-east quarter of the north-east quarter of section one, township eight north, of range four west, in said county, that said judgments became, and thereby were, liens upon the said lands. That on the first day of November, 1875, "W". H. Blain, then probate or county judge of said county of Eillmore, tendered his resignation of said office to the county commissioners of said county, who duly accepted the same, whereby a vacancy in said office of probate or county judge occurred. That the said county commissioners to fill said vacancy then appointed the said C. M. Northrup probate or county judge, who immediately entered upon the duties of said office, and as such probate or county judge was the legal custodian of the record, docket, and papers of said office, and while the said C. M. North
It is to be regretted that the plaintiffs in error, having brought so voluminous a record to this court, should have omitted to also bring copies of the final decrees in said foreclosure suits, or at .least one of them, yet the writer as an individual member of the court, thinks that any decree which the said court could have properly rendered in said causes must have contained authority to the said Hapgood & Co. to enforce the same by an order of sale in case of the failure to do so on the part of the plaintiff therein. And that in the absence of either suggestion or evidence to the contrary, this court must presume that such decrees do contain such authority.
The allegations of the petition, so far as the lien of the plaintiffs in error is concerned, present five points. 1. They deny that plaintiffs in error obtained judgments against Northrup in the probate court. 2. They allege that such judgments were satisfied in the docket of the said probate court. 3. They deny that said judgments were ever entered on the judgment record of the ■ district court so as to become liens upon the real estate in question. 4. They allege that such judgments were satisfied of record in the district court. 5/ That C. M. Northrup delivered two of the notes executed to the Wells’ to the plaintiffs in error, which they received with the agreement that when paid they should be in full for the said judgments, and that said notes have been paid to the plaintiffs in error; and I perhaps ought to notice as a 6th point the general assertion that Jerusha A. Ellis, one of the defendants in error, has paid the said notes, etc.
It is perhaps sufficient for the purposes of this ease to say that each one of the above stated points of the petition is met by a specific denial in the answer.
The plaintiffs in error in their answer also set up in bar of the plaintiff’s action, the former adjudication of the same questions in the two cases of Northrup v. Wells et al.
Without stopping to comment upon the curious anomaly presented by those cases, of a party suing his own creditors, further than to say that probably they alone could complain of such proceeding, as the counsel in their brief desire the opinion of the court as to the effect of the former adjudication, I will say that as
Under our system of practice, when a party brings a suit as plaintiff, or in a suit is served with process as a defendant, after answer day, at least, he must take notice of all pleadings filed in the case, either by his opponent or by his co-plaintiff or defendant, and ordinarily at least, pleadings are not required to be served or notice of their filing given.
If I am not wrong in the above views, then the field of inquiry in this case, from a very broad one, is brought to a rather narrow one. And the question is, whether the defendant in error, Jerusha A. Ellis, has paid to the plaintiffs in error the money found due them by the referee in the said causes, or one of them, as affirmed in and by the decree of the district court, and upon that point the pleadings on the part of the plaintiffs in error are not demurrable.
The decree of the district court sustaining the demurrer to the answer, as well as that perpetuating the injunction in said action, is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings, according to law.
Reversed and remanded.