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42 Cal. 387

McCourtney v. Fortune

California Supreme Court

Decided October 15, 1871

California Supreme Court · decided 1871-10-15

This was an action of ejectment for a lot in the City and County of San Francisco. On December 17th, 1869, findings were filed and judgment ordered to be entered in favor of defendant Coleman. A few days afterwards, plaintiffs moved on the same findings for judgment the other way; and on December 29th, 1869, the former judgment was vacated and judgment for plaintiffs rendered.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Upon an appeal from a final judgment an order made in the cause which is itself, by statute, made the subject of a distinct appeal, cannot be reviewed.” (Page 390.)”

quoted by 1 later decision, including White v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1871-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently December 1952

10 state decisions

30187118801890190019101920193019401950decided

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 →

By the Court, Wallace, J.:

¶1Findings were filed and judgment for the defendant rendered (though not recorded or entered in form by the Clerk) on the 17th day of December, 1869.

¶2On the 29th day of December, 1869, upon motion of plaintiff, this judgment was vacated and set aside, and judgment was rendered for the plaintiff (but not recorded or entered in form by the Clerk).

¶3On the 9th day of July, 1870, a motion made by the defendant to set aside the judgment rendered on the twenty-ninth of December, coming on to-be heard, was denied, and on July 12th, 1870, under the direction of the Court then given, judgment in favor of the plaintiff was formally recorded and entered against the defendant; and on March 27th, 1871, this appeal was taken from that judgment.

¶4This judgment, as entered, was in pursuance of the order of December 29th, 1869; it recites that “ on motion of plaintiff’s attorney, made in open Court, which motion was based upon the findings of the Court, now on file herein, and upon the order of this Court duly made and entered on the 29th day of December, 1869, it is now ordered, adjudged,” etc. It was therefore but the entry in form of the judgment rendered on the 29th day of December, 1869, and was in effect *390only a special direction to the Clerk to record in form the judgment which by the effect and operation of the order of December twenty-ninth he should have theretofore recorded in form.

¶5The time limited for an appeal from the judgment, thus commenced to run from the 29th day of December, 1869, when the judgment was rendered. The appeal taken March 27th, 1871, was, therefore, too late, and the respondent’s motion to dismiss it must, for that reason, be sustained.

¶6But even if an appeal had been taken from the judgment within one year from the rendition (i. e., the order of December 29th, 1869), the supposed error of the order of that date could not have been reviewed upon such an appeal, for that order was one entered in the cause after the rendition of the judgment of December 17th, 1869, which it purported to set aside, and was itself, as being a Special order made after final judgment, the subject of a distinct appeal (Practice Act, Sec. 347), to be taken in sixty days after the making, of the order. Upon an appeal from a final judgment an order made in the cause which is itself, by statute, made the subject of a distinct appeal, cannot be reviewed.

¶7The appeal must be dismissed; and it is so ordered.

¶8Mr. Justice Temple did not participate in the foregoing decision.

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