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42 Ala. 404

Garlick v. Dunn

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 15, 1868

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1868-01-15

Tried before tbe Hon. Bobert Dougherty. The appellee’s testator, one D. N. Gerald, instituted Ms suit against the appellant, and ¥m. K. Aldridge, on the 9th February, 1859, the cause of action being a promissory note. At the spring term, 1866, there was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, the suit having been duly revived in the name of the executor.

Relies on Wightman v. Karsner

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently April 2018

1 federal appellate · 20 state decisions

501868187018801890190019101920193019401950196019701980199020002010decided

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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JUDGE, J.

¶1-We concede the correctness of the principle insisted upon by the appellant, that when a time is prescribed by law within which a court shall be held, it is essential to the exercise of jurisdiction by the court, that it act within the time prescribed, and that should it act at another and a different time, such acts are abso*405lutely void.— Wightman v. Karsner, 20 Ala. 446. But this principle has no application to the present case. We judicially know that Monday, the 14th of May, 1866, was the time appointed by law for the holding of the spring term of the circuit court for Russell county; and we are informed by the record that the cause was tried, and a judgment rendered therein, on the 15th May, 1866, the second day of the term. The fact that a pretended court, by misunderstanding, may have been held the week before, and that the first week of the term proper, was regarded as the second, can have no influence upon the case. We are not called upon to pronounce upon the validity of any action of the court at a time when no court was authorized by law to be held ; and such not being this case, we would be compelled to affirm the judgment but for the fact that the appeal is not regularly taken. The judgment is against William EL. Aldridge and Edgar Garlick, and the appeal is in the name of Garlick alone. On this ground, a motion is made to dismiss the appeal, and we feel bound to grant it. — Shep. Dig. 563, Sec. 11. If it is desired, however, the appeal may be amended.

¶2Appeal dismissed.

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