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20 N.M. 471

Alldredge v. Alldredge

New Mexico Supreme Court

Decided July 8, 1915

New Mexico Supreme Court · decided 1915-07-08

C. Abbott, Judge. Action by Mayme E. Alldredge against Eobert E. All-dredge and others, in which Elmer E. Studley and another intervene. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant Eobert E. Alldredge appeals.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The duty of this court, as every other judicial tribunal, is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinion upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including State ex rel. Town of Portales v. Board of Com'rs

Relies on Mills v. Green · Kimball v. Kimball · Myers v. Gibson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Dismissed · Decided 1915-07-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently October 1972

4 state decisions

201915192019301940195019601970decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1OPINION OP THE COURT.

EOBEETS, C. J.

¶2— This is a companion ease to cause No. 1763, between the same parties, decided at the present term of this court, and involves only the right of Mayme E. Alldredge, the plaintiff in the court below, to release and satisfy the judgment entered in the court below, awarding her $1,000 as fees for her counsel, under the stipulation set out in the opinion in cause No. 1763, 151 Pac. 311. After the entry of such judgment, she gave to her husband a formal release and satisfaction of the judgment, which he filed with the clerk of the district court. Messrs. Studley and Spaulding thereupon filed a motion to strike the release from the files, which motion was sustained by the court. From the action of the court this appeal is prosecuted.

¶3In view of our reversal of the judgment entered by the trial court, with directions to strike out the motion upon which it was founded, and our holding in cause No. 1763, the question sought to be raised upon this appeal becomes of no consequence, and our decision thereon would have no effect whatever upon the rights of the parties. Such being the case, we must decline to consider the merits of the controversy. As was said in Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651, 16 Sup. Ct. 132, 40 L. Ed. 293:

“The duty of this court, as of every other judicial tribunal, is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.”

¶4See, also, Kimball v. Kimball, 174 U. S. 158, 19 Sup. Ct. 639, 43 L. Ed. 932; Floyd v. Cochran, 24 Colo. 489, 52 Pac. 676; Horne v. Horne, 73 N. C. 534; Ellison v. Sun Printing & Publishing Ass’n, 41 App. Div. 594, 59 N. Y. Supp. 970; Matter of Strauss, 157 N. Y. 720, 53 N. E. 646; McGill v. Bartman et al. (Ky.), 68 S. W. 1100.

¶5This appeal will therefore be dismissed; and it is so ordered.

Hanna and Parker, J.J., concur.
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