This was a suit by the appellee Jonathan Edwards, trustee, as sole plaintiff, to foreclose a mortgage alleged to have been executed to him by the defendants, Peter Twining and Hannah, his wife, who are named as appellees in this court. The appellants, Mary E. Sauer and Frederick Sauer, her husband, were made defendants to the suit upon the ground that the said Mary E. had, or claimed to have, an interest in the*mortgaged premises. The appellants jointly answered in two paragraphs, of which the first was a cross complaint, and
The error chiefly relied upon by the appellants’ counsel for the reversal of the judgment below seems to be the decision of the court in overruling the demurrer to the second paragraph of the answer of Jonathan Edwards, trustee, to the first paragraph or cross complaint of the appellants.
In their cross complaint, the appellants alleged in substance, that the said Mary E. Sauer had been and was the absolute owner, in fee simple, and in her own right, of the premises described in the mortgage in suit; that she was feeble-minded, and had been reared by her mother in entire seclusion from society, and in utter ignorance of the value of said premises; and that after her mother’s death, to wit, on the 9th day of July, 1869, the said Peter Twining, by means of certain false and fraudulent practices and appliances, had induced and procured her, the said Mary E., to sell and convey the said premises to him, the said Peter, for a greatly inadequate price, not exceeding the one-fifth part of the fair and reasonable value thereof; of all which the appellee Jonathan Edwards, trustee, had notice. Wherefore, etc.
In the second paragraph of his answer to the appellants’ cross complaint, the appellee Edwards, trustee, alleged in substance, that on the-day of January, 1878, in an action then pending in the Vanderburgh Circuit Court, wherein the said Mary E. and Frederick Sauer were plaintiffs, and
It is claimed by the appellants’ counsel, as we understand his argument, that the judgment pleaded by the appellee Edwards in bar of the appellants’ cause of action, as stated in their cross complaint, was valid, binding and conclusive, in so far as it declared that the deed from Mary E. Sauer to Peter Twining should be held for naught, void and of no effect. But it is also claimed by counsel, that the residue of the j udgment, to the effect that Twining should recover of .said Mary E. Sauer a certain sum of money, and providing that, if such money was not paid within sixty days, Twining’s title to the real estate should be quieted and forever set at rest, was eoram non judice, outside of the jurisdiction of the court rendering the same, and was therefore invalid and -void. It must be confessed, we think, that the judgment in question is somewhat anomalous and it may be erroneous ; but it can not be said, that in a collateral proceeding, such as the one here presented, such judgment is invalid and void. In the rendition of the judgment, the Vanderburgh Circuit Court had jurisdiction both of the subject-matter of the action there pending, and of the parties thereto; and although errors may have intervened in the proceedings, which, upon ■appeal, would have necessarily resulted in the reversal of the judgment, yet they will not vitiate or avoid such judgment, when the same is attacked collaterally, as in the case now before us.
In support of his position, that so much of the judgment pleaded as provided for the recovery by Twining of the moneys ■expended by him in the payment of State and county taxes, and in lasting and valuable improvements on the real estate in controversy, in excess of the rents and profits thereof, wTas absolutely invalid and void, the appellants’ counsel seems
. The Vanderburgh Circuit Court was a court of general jurisdiction, and in the judgment pleaded it had jurisdiction both of the subject-matter and of the parties. However erroneous it may have been, the judgment was valid, binding and conclusive as to the matter in controversy upon the parties thereto, and those claiming under them. It was pleaded by the appellee Edwards, as a former recovery on the same cause of action stated by the appellants in their
The court committed no error therefore in overruling the appellants’ demurrer to the second paragraph of answer to their cross complaint.
The appellants have also assigned as error the supposed unconstitutionally of the statute establishing the superior court of Vanderburgh county. The statute referred to is almost a literal copy of the act establishing the superior court of Tippecanoe county. The constitutionality of the latter act was fully considered by this court in the case of Vickery v. Ohase, 50 Ind. 461, and the enactment was held to be constitutional and valid. The question, therefore, can not now be regarded as an open one, and we must decline to consider it further. Upon the authority of the case cited, we hold the statute of March 3d, 1877, establishing a superior court in the county of Vanderburgh, to be constitutional and valid.
The judgment is affirmed, with costs.