Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

201 Pa. 439

Schomaker v. Dean

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided January 6, 1902

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1902-01-06

Appeal, No. 74, Oct. T., 1901, by-plaintiffs, from order of C. P. No. 2, Allegheny Co., Oct. T., 1894, opening judgment and from judgment on verdict in case of William Schomaker and Frederick Schomaker, trading as Schomaker & Company, v. John H. Dean, Charles F. Marshall and James Matthews. From the record it appeared that judgment had been entered under warrant of attorney contained in a judgment note.

Relies on English v. Hager · Citizens' Building & Loan Ass'n v. Hoagland & Gass · Huston v. Ticknor & Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1902-01-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently June 1976 · most notably Boyd v. Kirch (1912), 130 Pa. Super. 480 - First National Bank & Trust Company v. Stolar (1937)

26 state decisions

6019021910192019301940195019601970decided

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 by

Mr. Justice Fell,

¶2The suggestion that the appeal was not taken in time to entitle the defendant to a review of the order of the court opening the judgment, raises a question of practice under the act of May 20, 1891, which should be settled. The rule to show cause why the judgment should not be opened and the defendant let into a defense, was made absolute in September, 1899. A separate appeal was not taken from the order. It is assigned as error in the appeal which was taken after the trial of the issue *441and more than six months after the order was made. The act of April 4, 1877, gave the right of appeal from an order of the court in a proceeding to open a confessed judgment to either party, but it was held that as to the plaintiff in the judgment the order was interlocutory and that no appeal would lie from it until the issue was tried and a final judgment entered: Citizens’ Building & Loan Asso. v. Hoagland, 87 Pa. 326; English’s App., 119 Pa. 533. The act of 1891 enlarged the class of cases in which an appeal could be taken by including judgments :“.... of any kind, whether entered by amicable confession, upon warrant of attorney or otherwise,” and provided that the appeals should be heard “ in like manner as appeals from final decrees.” The effect of this act is to entitle the party-aggrieved by the opening of the judgment to an appeal from the interlocutory order or decree. This is a new right, but the old one was not taken away by the act, and the plaintiff may at his option take an appeal from the order within six months, or wait and have the action of the court reviewed as before the act, on an appeal after the issue is tried and a final judgment is entered. The latter course is to be commended as it avoids the necessity-for two appeals in the same case, or any appeal if the final judgment is in the plaintiff’s favor.

¶3There is, however, no merit in the contention that the court erred in opening the judgment. The defendant in his petition alleged that he never signed nor delivered the note, nor authorized anyone to do so for him, and that his signature thereto was a forgery. The plaintiff in his answer averred that the note had been duly signed. This raised an issue on which the defendant was entitled to go to a jury.

¶4The defendant’s third point related to the proof of the note, and presented the proposition that the execution of the note could not be proved by a witness who was not present when it was signed, and who afterwards affixed his signature thereto, as an attesting witness, without the request or consent of the maker. This point was properly affirmed: Huston v. Ticknor, 99 Pa. 231.

¶5The judgment is affirmed.

/201/pa/439 · .json · Public domain