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24 Wis. 340

Jenkins v. Esterly

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided June 15, 1869

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1869-06-15

A judgment in favor of defendant, upon the report of a referee, was entered in this cause in March, 1867 ; and, on appeal to this court, one of the grounds relied upon to reverse it was, that no notice of the motion for judgment had been served on the plaintiff. This court held that such notice should have been given, but that plaintiff should have taken advantage of the irregularity by applying to the circuit court to set aside the judgment; and it affirmed the judgment.

Relies on Ætna Life Insurance v. McCormick · Patterson v. Graves · Jones v. United States Slates Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1869-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently November 1905

4 state decisions

2018691870188018901900decided

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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Paute, J.

¶1The motion to set aside the judgment for irregularity should have been denied, because it was made too late. It was made more than a year after the judgment was entered. To warrant the setting aside of a judgment for a mere technical irregularity, the party should be prompt in moving so soon as he has actual knowledge of the judgment. He must do it before he takes any subsequent step in the cause. Here he took an appeal from the judgment, which is itself a subsequent step. And it was only after his failure to reverse the judgment on appeal, that he resorted to this motion. Instead of the appeal, therefore, constituting an excuse for the delay, it constituted a waiver of the irregularity. For, unless the judgment was regular, the party ought to have moved, instead of appealing. That such a motion must be promptly made at the first opportunity, see Ætna Life Ins. Co. v. McCormick et al., 20 Wis. 265; Patterson v. Graves, 11 How. Pr. 91; Jones v. U. S. Slate Co., 16 How. Pr. 129.

¶2By the Court. — The order is reversed, with costs.

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