Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

34 Mo. 372

Lawther v. Agee

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided January 15, 1864

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1864-01-15

I. The Circuit Court erred in rendering a final judgment against the plaintiff in error at the October term, 1863, of the Callaway Circuit Court. That judgment ought to have been an interlocutory judgment with a writ of inquiry to the next succeeding term thereafter. The judgment could not be rendered final at tlie October term of the court.

Relies on Doan v. Holly · McNair v. Jenson · Watson v. Walsh & Patterson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1864-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently April 1933

14 state decisions

3018641870188018901900191019201930decided

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 →

Bay, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2In Doan v. Holly, 26 Mo. 186, it was decided by this court that a proceeding to foreclose a mortgage given to secure the payment of a promissory note for the direct payment of money, is not one of those actions in which the law contemplates that a judgment by default may be proceeded with to final judgment at the return term.

¶3In Hopkins v. McGee, 33 Mo. 312, we held that in actions not founded on bonds, bills, or notes, for the direct payment of money or property, an interlocutory judgment could not be taken and made final at the same term, but that the taking of the one must precede that of the other at least one term.

¶4In the case at bar, an interlocutory judgment was taken at the October term, 1863, and made final at the same term. This was an irregularity which entitles the defendant to have the judgment set aside, by motion in the court below. It is not a void judgment, but an irregular judgment, and the remedy of the defendant was to move to set it aside; and if the court had overruled the motion, it would have been error, for which this court would have reversed the judgment. But the defendant having omitted to take any steps in the court below to have the judgment set aside5 *374lie cannot avail himself of the irregularity by an appeal to this court. (See Watson v. Walsh & Patterson, 10 Mo. 454, and Branstetter v. Rives, decided at the present term of this court.

The other judges concurring,

¶5the judgment will be affirmed.

/34/mo/372 · .json · Public domain