Bryn Mawr National Bank v. James

25 A. 823, 152 Pa. 364

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: January 16, 1893
• Docket: Appeal, No. 436
• Status: Published

Opinion

Opinion by

Mr. Chiee Justice Paxson,

The only specification of error is, that the court below erred in striking off the judgment which had been entered in favor of the plaintiff. The appellant’s paper book does not give us the entire record necessary to an intelligent understanding of the case. The appellee, however, has given us the affidavit of the defendant upon which the court granted the rule to strike off the judgment, by which it appears that the first knowledge that the defendant had that a suit had been brought against her was the execution issued upon the judgment; that one John J. Clark, attorney at law, had accepted service of the writ and statement issued and filed therein as attorney for the defendant; that the said John J. Clark was not her attorney; that she had never consulted him professionally in respect to the said suit, and that he had no authority from her to accept service as her attorney of such writ and statement. While the court may not, as a general rule, strike off a judgment, regular upon its face, yet it may do so where a judgment has been entered wholly without authority. The judgment so entered is no judgment at all, so far as it affects the rights of the defendant. In this ease the question of fact, as to the authority of the attorney, has been decided by the court below in favor of the defendant. We must presume it to have been correctly decided in the absence of anything to show the contrary.

Judgment affirmed.