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115 Ill. App. 138

Leahy v. Stone

Appellate Court of Illinois

Decided July 12, 1904

Appellate Court of Illinois · decided 1904-07-12

<p>1. Stipulation—when client bound by stipulation of his attorney. Where the client acts upon and takes advantage of a stipulation entered into by his attorney with the attorney of the adverse party, he recognizes such stipulation and is bound thereby, notwithstanding its execution may have been unauthorized.</p> <p>2. Appeal—power of attorney to waive. An attorney in a case has an implied authority to enter into a stipulation in advance of the trial that the judgment which may be entered therein shall be final, and that no appeal or writ of error shall be prosecuted therefrom.</p>

Relies on Wilson v. Spring · Town of Alton v. Town of Gilmanton · Pike v. Emerson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Writ of error dismissed · Decided 1904-07-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently October 1947

4 state decisions

2019041910192019301940decided

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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Mr. Justice Baker

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The contention of the plaintiff in error is, that notwithstanding the stipulation that this judgment should be final and that no appeal or writ of error should be prosecuted to reverse the same by either party, this writ of error- can be sustained because the stipulation was signed, not by the defendant, but by his attorneys for him, and that attorneys have no implied authority to make such a stipulation.

¶3The certified check of' the defendant was deposited with the clerk in pursuance of the terms of the stipulation. The judgment was vacated and the defendant took part in the second trial and testified in his own behalf at that trial. If he did not authorize his attorneys to sign the stipulation he ratified their act in signing it, took advantage of it, and is as much bound by it as though he himself had signed it.

¶4We are also of the opinion that the attorneys of the defenclant had implied authority to stipulate that the judgment rendered on the second trial should be final and that no appeal or writ of error to reverse the same should be prosecuted. In Wilson v. Spring, 64 Ill. 14, it was said (p. 18): “ It has been repeatedly held that an attorney may admit facts on the trial or in pleading, waive a right of an appeal, review, notice, etc., and confess a judgment.” Talbot v. McGee, 4 Monr. 377; Pike v. Emerson, 5 N. H. 393; Alton v. Gilmanton, 2 N. H. 520. In Pike v. Emerson, supra, it was held that an attorney has implied authority to make such a stipulation. In Meriden Hydro-Carbon Arc Light Co. v. Anderson, 111 Ill. App. 449, we said: “The distinction between acts which an attorney has implied authority from his client to do and those for which he had not such authority, seems to be, between an act collateral to and one directly within the employment and duty of an attorney. ‘ The act of an attorney shall prejudice his master in the principal matter; for if he confess the action without the consent and will of the master, this shall bind the master, but otherwise in.collateral matters.’ 3 Yiner’s Abridgt. 304. ‘An attorney being in court instead of his client or in his ‘ place and turn,5 may make any disposition of 'the suit and any admission of facts which the party himself could make. 1 Salk, 86; Alton v. Gilmanton, 2 N. H. 520.”

¶5The attorneys who signed the stipulation were employed to defend, in the Circuit Court, the suit brought against the defendant. It was to enable them to present his defense that the stipulation was made; it relates to the proceedings in the cause and was filed in the cause. Such a stipulation is a principal, not a collateral matter, and the defendant ivas bound by it.

¶6As the stipulation that no writ of error should be prosecuted to reverse the judgment appears in the record, the defendant may properly move to dismiss the writ of error upon the record. Farwell v. Sturges, 165 Ill. 252, 274.

¶7The writ of error will be dismissed.

¶8Writ of error dismissed.

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