Collins v. McDowell

1922 OK 25, 204 P. 276, 85 Okla. 21, 1922 Okla. LEXIS 17
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJanuary 31, 1922
Docket11259
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 1922 OK 25 (Collins v. McDowell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Collins v. McDowell, 1922 OK 25, 204 P. 276, 85 Okla. 21, 1922 Okla. LEXIS 17 (Okla. 1922).

Opinion

JOHNSON, J.

The record discloses that in the year 1907, and prior to that date, John W. Duncan was the owner of two tracts of land, one of which was situated in Love county and the o.ther in Carter county, Okla., and that he and his wife, Carrie Duncan, had executed - a mortgage covering said land to secure the payment of a promissory note to one Crilly, who assigned the note and mortgage to S. J. Hill, and that thereafter, on December 13, 1907, Hill commenced an action in the district court of Carter county against John W. Duncan and Carrie Duncan, and that on tHe 19th day of March, 1908, without any appearafice on behalf of either of the defendants, á judgment by default was entered in said cause; that thereafter two orders of sale were issued, one directed to the sheriff of Love county, and the other directed to the sheriff of Carter county, Okla.; that the land was sold in pursuance of said orders of sale, and. that S. J- HUÍ, the plaintiff, became '.the, purchaser thereof,, .which sale was duly confirmed. by the court; and soon thereafter she sold the land - in controversy to her daughter, Corinne V. McDowell. The sheriff’s deed to. the Carter county land .to S. J. Hill was issued and delivered to the purchaser on the 24th day of December, 1908, and duly recorded1 in Carter county on October 6, 1909. Her deed to her daughter, Corinne V. McDowell, was dated November 23,1912, and on the 10th day of January, 1917, Corinne V. *22 McDowell executed to the Carter Oil Compa ny an oil and gas lease on the land situated in Carter county, which was duly recorded. On or about October 21, 1910, John W. Duncan, the principal defendant in said cause, died, leaving Carrie Duncan, hereafter- referred to as Carrie Duncan Collins, and his min- or children, Howard Duncan and Lucy Duncan, as his sole heirs. After the sale of said land under the judgment as aforesaid, and prior to the death of John W. Duncan, the defendants vacated the land and yielded the possession thereof to the purchaser, and thereafter they rented the Love county «tract from the said Hill and her grantee, Corinne V. McDowell, for several years, and John Duncan assisted in his lifetime in the collection of the rent from their tenants, and at no time during his life did he take any steps to recover the property.

On the 11th day of July, 1919, Carrie Duncan Collins, Howard Duncan, and Lucy Duncan filed a motion in the original foreclosure proceeding in Hill v. Duncan, case No. 12, in the district court of Carter county, to vacate the judgment entered in said cause on the 19th day of March, 1908, and at the time of the filing of such motion Corinne V. McDowell was the owner of both tracts, the real property in question, and the defendant in error F. J. Ramsey was the owner of an oil and gas lease upon ten acres of the Carter county tract.

The respondents, defendants in error, Corinne Y. McDowell, F. J. Ramsey, and the Carter Oil Company were not parties to the original action in foreclosure, and ,the only party to this proceeding who was a party to the original action is the said Carrie Duncan Collins, and any interest which she may have in the property in question was inherited from her husband, the said John W. Duncan, after the foreclosure and sale of the property under the judgment sought to be vacated by this proceeding.

The parties moved for the vacation of the judgment upon the grounds (a) that no summons was ever served upon the defendants in the original action; (b) that the plaintiff in said action had made certain fraudulent representations to the court; (c) that summons was issued in the original action, .made returnable on December 24th, and not served until December 28th, which was after the return date noted in the summons; (d) that the officer making the service was not qualified to make a valid service of summons.

No attempt was made to establish the charge of fraud on the court, and it was later admitted that the officer was qualified to make service of summons. The only one of these contentions relied upon by the movants was that ,the summons was served after the return day.

Upon the trial of the motion to vacate the original judgment, and at the conclusion thereof, the trial court rendered a judgment in favor of the defendants, to reverse which this proceeding in error was commenced.

The plaintiffs in error assign as error the action of the court in overruling the motion to'set aside ,the judgment complained of, and the failure of the court to sustain said motion and set aside said judgment, concerning which counsel for plaintiffs in error say in their brief:

“For the purpose of this argument we will assume that .the summons was served after the return day, * * * and it is our contention tha.t if the summons was served after the return day, it is absolutely void and confers no jurisdiction on. the court.”

Counsel cite section 4711, Rev. Laws 1910, in support of their contention, which provides that “service should be made by delivering a copy of the summons to the defendant personally or by leaving one at his usual place of residence with some member of his family over 15 years of age at any time before the return day”; and an excerpt from the case of Cohen v. Cochran Gro. Co., 70 Oklahoma, 173 Pac. 642, holding that leaving a copy at his usual place of business with his business manager is insufficient to confer jurisdiction of the person. We think these citations have no application to the question involved. That the summons being served after the return day thereof, the judgment is void, is the sole question involved, it being assumed by counsel that summons was served, and was served after return day mentioned thereon.

Counsel cite decisions from other jurisdictions that are more or less in point, which it will not be necessary to discuss, for the reason that we think the decisions of this court conclusively settle the question involved against the contentions of counsel for plaintiffs in error that the judgment sought to be vacated is void because the summons was had upon the defendant after the return day, and that the judgment may be attacked by motion to vacate the same at any time, as provided in section 5274, Rev. Laws 1910, wherein it is said:

“A void judgment may be vacated at anv time on motion of a party or any person affected thereby.”

It will be observed that the judgment sought to be vacated was rendered by the district court of Carter county on ‘.the 19th day *23 of March, 1908, and that the motion of the «plaintiff in error to vacate the same was filed in such cause in said court on the 11th day of July, 1918, 11 years, three months, and 22 days after the judgment was rendered, and about eight and a- half years after the death oí John W. Duncan, and more than five years had elapsed after the filing for record and recording of the sheriff’s deed.

In answer to the contention of counsel for plaintiffs in error, counsel for defendants in error say in their brief:

“The time has passed within which the judgment in question can be successfully attacked in a proceeding of this character, unless the same is utterly void upon the face ox the record. This proposition is perhaps self-evident, and it will be but briefly argued.

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Bluebook (online)
1922 OK 25, 204 P. 276, 85 Okla. 21, 1922 Okla. LEXIS 17, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/collins-v-mcdowell-okla-1922.