Harris v. Chicago House Wrecking Co.

226 Ill. App. 220, 1922 Ill. App. LEXIS 129
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedOctober 18, 1922
DocketGen. No. 27,015
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 226 Ill. App. 220 (Harris v. Chicago House Wrecking Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harris v. Chicago House Wrecking Co., 226 Ill. App. 220, 1922 Ill. App. LEXIS 129 (Ill. Ct. App. 1922).

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Thomson

delivered the opinion of the court.

By this action the plaintiff, Harris, sought to recover a judgment for damages against the defendant, by reason of personal injuries, suffered by him while in the defendant’s employ. The plaintiff duly filed his declaration and the defendant its plea of not guilty. Thereafter, on July 18, 1914, an order was entered, striking the cause from the docket. On June 17, 1915, this case, with others which had been stricken from the docket, was redocketed and .placed on the trial call, and on the following day, June 18, 1915, the case being called for trial and no person responding, it was dismissed for want of prosecution. On October 15, 1915, the attorney for the plaintiff served a notice on the attorney for the defendant, advising him that on the following day he would appear in the circuit court, before the Honorable Frederick A. Smith, one of the judges of that court, “and ask to have the above entitled cause reinstated on the docket,” submitting, in support of the motion, the affidavit of the plaintiff’s attorney, a copy of which was attached to the notice. This affidavit was to the effect that “through a mistake and inadvertence in his office,” the cause had been “stricken off of the calendar” on July 18, 1914; and that inasmuch as he had no knowledge that the case had been so stricken off, he did not know that the case was within an order which had been entered in the circuit court on January 22, 1915, which called for the making up of a calendar of all common-law cases, stricken from the docket, from the date of the Chicago Fire down to and including December 31, 1914; and that being ignorant of these facts, “the case was again stricken from the last-named calendar on June 18, 1915.”

It appears from the record that, pursuant to this notice, the motion therein referred to was duly made before Judge Smith, on October 16, 1915, on which date Judge Smith entered the following order: “On motion of Charles H. Aldrich, solicitor for plaintiff and over the objections of the attorney for the defendant to the jurisdiction of the court to enter such order, it is ordered and directed that this cause be restored to the docket of this court and stand for trial in its regular order.”

On January 30, 1918, on motion of the plaintiff, the case was passed, to be taken up on five days’ written notice by either of the parties. It subsequently was reached on the trial call of another judge, who set it for trial on May 21, 1919. By mistake of a minute clerk, it was noted for trial on April 21, 1919, and was duly reached for trial by another judge on April 28, 1919, and when the case was then called for trial, the plaintiff failing to appear, the case was again dismissed for want of prosecution. On May 22, 1919, the plaintiff again, through his attorney, notified the defendant of his motion to vacate the last order of dismissal. This motion was duly heard, and on June 5, 1919, which was within the term, an order was entered vacating the order of dismissal of April 28, 1919, and the case was reinstated. It was again con-tinned on plaintiff’s motion on July 8, 1919.

On March 7, 1921, the cause was again reached and called for trial, whereupon, objections were made by the defendant to the further consideration of the case, and to the jurisdiction of the court as to parties and subject-matter, whereupon the court sustained the objections and entered a finding and order to the effect that the court “lost jurisdiction of said cause at the time of the first order of dismissal (June 18, 1915) herein appearing on the record, and has never regained such jurisdiction, and that no further proceedings should or can be had therein, and said cause should no longer appear upon the docket.” Exception to the entering of this order was duly preserved by the plaintiff and by this appeal he seeks to have the order reversed.

The defendant contends tha't there can be no review of this record on the assignments of error made by the plaintiff. The first assignment of error pointed out and urged by the plaintiff is to the effect that “the said court erred in dismissing said cause.” That assignment refers of course to the order of March 7, 1921, wherein the court found that it had previously lost jurisdiction of the case and that no further proceedings should or could be had therein and that said cause should no longer appear upon the docket of the court. While the wording of the assignment of error may not be accurate, we consider it sufficient to present the questions involved in the entering of the order of March 7, 1921, to this court for review.

In presenting the motion of October 16, 1915, seeking to have the case “reinstated on the docket,” plaintiff was, in effect, asking the court to vacate the order of dismissal of June 18, 1915, and reinstate the case, and that was, in substance, the court’s order as entered on October 16, 1915, the wording of which was “that this cause be restored to the docket of this court, and stand for trial in its regular order.”

In prosecuting this appeal, the plaintiff takes the position that the motion of October 16,1915, pursuant to which the order of Judge Smith was entered, was a proceeding under section 89 of the Practice Act , [Cahill’s Ill. St. ch. 110, ¶ 89], which abolishes the writ of error coram nobis, and provides that all errors of fact, committed in the proceedings of any court of record, may be corrected by the court in which the error was committed, upon motion in writing, made at any time within five years after the rendition of final judgment in the case, upon reasonable notice. In this connection it is urged by the plaintiff, citing Barnes v. Chicago City Ry. Co., 185 Ill. App. 148, that this court will not presume that Judge Smith, at a term subsequent to the term at which the judgment, then sought to be set aside, was entered, attempted to set it aside on a motion entered in that case, such motion not being a proceeding under section 89, in view of the fact that under the law he then had no jurisdiction to entertain such a motion, but that this court must presume that, in entering the order, Judge Smith was attempting to exercise the jurisdiction which is provided for by section 89. And, in this connection, the plaintiff further contends that the order entered by Judge Smith was a final and appealable order, and, not having been reversed by appeal or writ of error, it stands as a final order and entitles him to a trial, of the issues joined, by a jury.

Answering this contention of the plaintiff, the defendant urges that in making his motion, on which the order of October 16, 1915, was entered, the plaintiff failed to comply with the provisions of section 89, and that, therefore, Judge Smith was without jurisdiction to set aside the order of dismissal, which had been entered at a previous term, and reinstate the case, and the order was thus void.

That the order of October 16, 1915, was a final appealable order is not controverted. That being the case, it follows, as was held in Domitski v. American Linseed Co., 221 Ill. 161, that “the error, if any, in holding the motion sufficient can only be corrected by appeal or writ of error from the judgment rendered in the particular case, upon proper assignments of error in the court of review.” The defendant has duly submitted its motion in this court for leave to assign cross error to the effect that the order entered by Judge Smith was error, and that motion has been reserved to the hearing.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
226 Ill. App. 220, 1922 Ill. App. LEXIS 129, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harris-v-chicago-house-wrecking-co-illappct-1922.