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1 Ala. 515

McCollom v. Hogan

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided June 15, 1840

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1840-06-15

Writ of error to the Circuit Court of Fayette County. ACTION of assumpsit on a promissory note. In the transcript of the record, is found the following memorandum of pleas: “ Want of consideration. Failure of consideration. Fraud.” “Pleas by leave of the court at the spring term, 1830. (This was the trial term.) Non assumpsit. Payment. Setoff. Want of consideration. Failure of consideration.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1840-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently February 1968

10 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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GOLDTHWAITE, J.

¶1— The question presented in this case, is similar in principle to that decided by this court in Abercrom*516bie v. Mosely, (9 Porter 145.) The only difference is, that in the case cited one issue was determined by the jury, whilst in this the pleas were wholly disregarded. We then slated the reasons which induced us to depart from some of the earlier decisions of this court on this matter of practice, and those reasons are equally forcible, whether applied to the state of the record in this or the other case. It is not possible to conceive that any defence to this case existed in point of fact, unless the defen. dants below were guilty of the most inexcusable negligence. We must infer that this suit was called as other suits, and that the defendants either were not present in person or by attorney; or if present, that they acquiesced in the judgment by default by waiving their pleas.

¶2Furthermore, the judgment entry recites that the defendants said nothing in bar or preclusion of the plaintiffs demand. This is presumed to be the solemn act of the court, and certainly as much credit is due to it as to the mere recital by the clerk of the existence of certain pleas, which must have been waived, or the minutes of the court must recite a false fact.

¶3We do not undertake to decide on the case presented, that a court is authorized to render a judgment by default or by nil (licit, when pleas are interposed within the proper period, though the defendant may afterward be passive; but the conclusiveness of such an entry as appears in this transcript can only be rebutted by a bill of exceptions (as was done in Gaston v. Parsons, 8 Porter 469,) or by some statement in the judgment entry, from which it may be legitimately inferred that (he pleas were neither waived, withdrawn, nor abandoned.

¶4Let the judgment be affirmed.

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