Levy ex rel. Levy v. Stofella

127 P. 725, 14 Ariz. 262
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 21, 1912
DocketCivil No. 1259
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 127 P. 725 (Levy ex rel. Levy v. Stofella) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Levy ex rel. Levy v. Stofella, 127 P. 725, 14 Ariz. 262 (Ark. 1912).

Opinion

FRANKLIN, C. J.

From a judgment in favor of the defendant in the court below, and an order overruling a motion for a new trial, the plaintiffs prosecuted an appeal to this court, and perfected the appeal by giving a bond for costs. No supersedeas bond was given as is required by the statute to suspend the execution of the judgment pending the determination of the appeal therefrom. Subsequently, upon application of the defendant—the application being resisted by plaintiffs—the lower court issued an order requiring the commissioner who had been appointed for that purpose to proceed to perform the duties of his office, and execute the judgment of the court in said cause. From this order the plaintiffs appealed, giving a bond to stay the execution of the order. The defendant in the court below, the appellee here, moves to dismiss the appeal from the order for want of jurisdiction in this court to entertain it. It will be seen from the foregoing statement that the motion to dismiss is directed to an appeal which comes to this court from an order of the trial court made after judgment.

We bear in mind the rule that the right to appeal depends entirely on express statutory enactment, and that, if the statute does not confer it, the right does not exist. Spicer v. Simms, 6 Ariz. 347, 57 Pac. 610; De Hanson et al. v. District Court, 11 Ariz. 379, 94 Pac. 1125.

Does the statute confer the right of direct appeal from the order made in this case? The jurisdiction of the supreme court to review orders upon direct appeal is limited by the statute to the following orders enumerated in paragraph 1214, Revised Statutes of Arizona of 1901: “ (1) An order refusing a new trial or granting a motion in arrest of judgment. (2) Any order affecting a substantial right, made in any action when such order in effect determines the action and prevents judgment from which an appeal might be taken. (3) A final order affecting a substantial right made in special proceedings or upon a summary application in any action after judgment. (4) An order or judgment in habeas corpus cases.” The appellants do not call our attention to the precise provision of the statute relied upon, but the appeal is evidently prosecuted upon the theory that the order is embraced within the terms of subdivision 3 of the paragraph quoted, to wit: “A final order affecting a substantial right made in special proceedings [264]*264or upon a summary application in any action after judgment.” This provision is in the very words of the Wisconsin statute (sec. 3069, subd. 2). While the supreme court of Wisconsin has been extremely liberal in the interpretation of this clause allowing appeals from orders, our investigation has not disclosed, nor has our attention been invited to, any decision of that court allowing an appeal from an order like the one at bar. Granting that the court has authority to stay the execution of the judgment as an inherent power of the court over its own process, the order in question was a matter of procedure, and does not affect a substantial right in the sense in which the term is employed in the statute. Had the court granted a stay of execution, it would merely have been granting a favor, but which the appellants could not claim as a right. If a supersedeas bond had been given, it would have stayed the execution of the judgment appealed from by operation of law, and would have thus afforded the appellants adequate protection from the execution of the judgment. The order in question is no more than the action of the court on its own process which is submitted to its discretion, and this court has no jurisdiction in such a case. It is not given by the statute. The appeal from the order was therefore dismissed on October 7, 1912.

Coming to the merits of the appeal from the judgment, it is observed that one Margaret C. Heyl, the mother of the plaintiffs in the present action, was on the fourth day of January, 1905, the owner of certain property in the town of Yuma, Arizona, which property was then subject to a judgment of the district court of Yuma county in favor of one John Stofella, the appellee here. The amount of the judgment was $15,700, and Stofella was about to sell the property under an execution to satisfy his judgment. To prevent the sale, Mrs. Heyl executed a deed to the property to one M. J. Nugent, which was without consideration other than the promise of Nugent that he would satisfy the Stofella judgment and hold the property in trust for the children of Mrs. Heyl, the appellants here. Mrs. Heyl also executed another deed to Stofella, the appellee here, for a part of the land in question, and a mortgage on the remainder to secure the payment of his judgment. In this state of matters Nugent brought an action against Stofella to quiet title to the property in question, and [265]*265prayed that Stofella’s deed and mortgage affecting the same be canceled. In this action Stofella filed an answer and cross-complaint seeking to establish his title to the property. The district court of Yuma county gave its judgment establishing the title of Nugent to the property and that Stofella was without title thereto, also decreeing that the deed and mortgage of Stofella be canceled. However, the decree of the court in the premises was upon the express condition that the plaintiff Nugent pay to the defendant Stofella on or before the fourth day of July, 1905, the sum of $15,700, less the sum of $600, together with $2.85, costs in the action; and, in case that Nugent should fail to pay Stofella the said sum as directed, then the judgment should be void and of no force and effect whatever. It appears that the $600 to be deducted from the amount which Nugent was required to pay on or before the day specified, as a condition precedent to having his judgment quieting title, was the amount which the court allowed Nugent for his attorneys’ fees in the cause. This judgment was dated May 15, 1905, and Nugent did not comply with its conditions, but appealed to the supreme court of the territory, on which appeal the judgment of the district court of Yuma county was reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to that court to enter judgment absolute for Nugent. Nugent v. Stofella, 10 Ariz. 151, 84 Pac. 910.

Prom this judgment of the territorial supreme court Stofella appealed to the supreme court of the United States, and that court reversed the judgment of the supreme court of the territory, and affirmed the judgment of the district court of Yuma county. In giving its judgment the supreme court of the United States observed that if Nugent is allowed to have the land free of all charge and the Stofella claim extinguished, which the judgment of the supreme court of the territory so directed, Nugent gets much more than he bargained for, and Stofella is deprived of his equitable interest in Nugent’s covenant to pay the mortgage debt, and thereby Stofella is made to lose a large sum of money rightly due to him, not from any necessity of justice, but simply because he has acted badly, and therefore any treatment is good enough for him. The supreme court of the United States did not draw its inference from the evidence independently, but under the law it was concluded by the facts as certified by the territorial [266]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
127 P. 725, 14 Ariz. 262, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/levy-ex-rel-levy-v-stofella-ariz-1912.