8 Wash. 140 | Wash. | 1894
The opinion of the court was delivered by
— This action was commenced in the superior court of Spokane county in November, 1891, and was tried and a decree of foreclosure entered in June, 1892, upon the sole issue as to whether the alleged alteration in the notes should invalidate them. The case was appealed, and heard by this court January 10, 1893, upon the same issue, and a decision was filed March 9, following, affirming the decree. 6 Wash. 84 (32 Pac. 1017). A petition for rehearing was filed April 8, containing matters pertinent to the decision only, and that petition was denied May 8. Subsequently, and in November, 1893, a petition was filed in the superior court to modify the decree which had been affirmed, and this court prohibited the exercise of jurisdiction therein. State, ex rel. Wolferman, v. Superior Court, 7 Wash. 234 (35 Pac. 930). In deciding the matter of the prohibition, we remarked, in substance, that when a judgment or decree had been affirmed by this court, all applications for a modification of such judgment or decree must be addressed to this court alone. Upon this hint, as counsel explain, a petition has now been filed, praying that upon the showing made the remittitur be recalled; that thé decree be modified so as to exclude certain portions of the mortgaged premises, and that the cause be remanded to the superior court with instructions to permit the answer to be amended so that the partial defense hereinafter mentioned may be set up and the rights of the parties to the excepted lands may be determined.
The basis of this application is contained in the following facts: The deceased Schneider sold and conveyed to
No evidence touching the subject of releases was adduced at the trial. The omission to plead the release is accounted for on the part of the appellants by a showing of reliance upon their attorneys to do whatever was necessary to protect their interests, the release having been put into the attorneys’ possession; and on the part of the attorneys the lapse is excused by the fact that the release described certain lots in Bell Park Addition to Spokane, which they were not informed was in fact the mortgaged tract of sixty acres.
Whether this court could, at any stage of an appeal, furnish the remedy here invoked, it is not necessary to say;
Concerning the limitations placed upon this court the appellants urge that inasmuch as, under the constitution, the court is always open, it has no terms, and therefore no fixed time beyond which it cannot modify its decisions. But, in our view, there are four periods, at one of which the jurisdiction must be held to cease, viz.: When the time for filing a petition for re-hearing has expired without the filing of such petition; when a petition on file has been denied; when the remittitur has been sent down; or at the expiration of the statutory sessions of the court in which one of the three foregoing events has taken place. We shall not now decide at which of these times the jurisdiction ends, since the application before us comes long after the
The application is denied, and the stay heretofore ordered against the writ of assistance is vacated.
Dtjnbar, C. J., and Hoyt and Anders, JJ., concur.
Scott, J., concurs in the result.