Holloway v. City of Durham

97 S.E. 486, 176 N.C. 550, 1918 N.C. LEXIS 298

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: December 4, 1918
• Status: Published

Opinion

Hoke, J.

In order to an effective estoppel of record by an adversary judgment in personam, it is -required tbat the court which rendered it should have “cognizance of tbe class of cases to which it belongs and should have acquired jurisdiction of tbe parties and of tbe subject-matter, and tbis question of jurisdiction of tbe subject-matter is determined by tbe controversy between tbe parties as presented and disclosed in their pleadings.” Tbis position, so' stated by Chief Justice Beasely in Munday v. Vail, 34 N. J. L., 418, affirmed in Dodd v. Una, 40 N. J. Eq., 672, was approved and applied here in Hobgood v. Hobgood, 169 N. C., 485-91, and, recognizing tbis as tbe true test, it is held in numerous and well-considered eases here and elsewhere tbat such a judgment will conclude tbe parties as to all matters directly in issue and as to all matters within tbe “scope of tbe pleadings which were material and relevant and were in fact investigated and determined at tbe bearing. Propst v. Caldwell, 172 N. C., 594; Cropsy v. Markham,, 171 N. C., 44; Coltraine v. Laughlin, 157 N. C., 282; Gillam v. Edmonson, 154 N. C., 127; Tyler v. Capehardt, 125 N. C., 64; Jordan v. Farthing, 117 N. C., 188; Fayerweather v. Ritch, 195 U. S., 277; Aurora City v. West, 74 N. C., 103. When, however, a court, going beyond the scope of the pleadings, undertakes to settle and determine matters entirely foreign to the controversy between the parties as they have presented it, the judgment, or that portion of it, does not bind and may be treated as a nullity.”

As held in Munday v. Vail, supra, “a decree which is entirely aside of the issue raised in the record is invalid and will be treated as a nullity even in a collateral proceeding.” And in illustration of the same principle it was held here, in Gillam v. Edmonson, supra, “That an estoppel of record will bind parties and privies as to matters in issue between them, but it does not conclude as to matters not involved in the issues, nor when they claim in a different right.” If this were adversary judgment, therefore, its effect as an estoppel between the parties would be necessarily restricted to the controversy about the land or the injuries to it that the plaintiff then owned and lived on and which he made the subject-matter of his complaint, and could in no sense be extended to the present tract which he has acquired since the former judgment was rendered.

The defendant does not question the soundness of this position as applied to a judgment in invitum, but insists that this being a judgment by consent the parties are not confined to the matters in controversy presented in their pleadings, and that the present judgment was intended to be and is an adjustment concluding the parties as to any and all damages that plaintiff, his heirs and assigns, might at any time suffer from the erection and maintenance of defendant’s plant. The decisions of this State have gone very far in approval of the principle that a judgment by consent is but a contract between the parties put upon the record with the sanction and approval of the Court and would seem to uphold the position that such a judgment may be entered and given effect as to any matters of which the court has general jurisdiction, and this with or without regard to the pleadings. Bank v. McEwen, 160 N. C., 414; Brown v. Braswell, 139 N. C., 139; Bank v. Comrs., 119 N. C., 214; Vaughn v. Gooch, 92 N. C., 524. Such a ruling has the support of well-considered authority elsewhere. Fletcher v. Holmes, 25 Ind., 458; Seiler v. Mfg. Co., 50 W. Va., 208, 218; Beach Modern Equity Practice, sec. 794; 2 Black on Judgments, sec. 705; 23 Cyc., 728.

Where, however, as in the case presented, the parties have defined and stated their rights and grievances by pleadings duly filed, a judgment in adjustment of the controversy should primarily and naturally be re ferred to the issues as presented in the pleadings and before a judgment, additional or foreign to the subject-matter, can be upheld as a judgment by consent, it should very plainly appear that the parties intended such an effect, and it should never be enlarged beyond the clear import of the terms they have used. Under this, undoubtedly the correct rule of interpretation, even if the consent judgment relied upon should be construed as extending to property other than that of the subject-matter1 of complaint, it should at least be confined to such property as was then owned b'y plaintiff; and, furthermore, as to any additional land, the protection secured against claims for any and all damages incident to the “building, erection and maintenance of the plant” refers to the structure and maintenance of such a plant, and not to “its negligent operation,” creating thereby a nuisance to the injury of the plaintiff’s property, as alleged in the present complaint.

There is error in the ruling of the court, and this will be certified that the matters in controversy may be submitted to the jury on appropriate issues.

Error.