Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Saunders

94 S.W.2d 703, 192 Ark. 783, 1936 Ark. LEXIS 162
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedMay 25, 1936
Docket4-4317
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 94 S.W.2d 703 (Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Saunders) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Saunders, 94 S.W.2d 703, 192 Ark. 783, 1936 Ark. LEXIS 162 (Ark. 1936).

Opinion

Smith, J.

Appellee recovered judgment in the Clark Circuit Court against the appellant’for the sum of $30.,-000, and for the reversal of this judgment- numerous errors are assigned and discussed in the briefs. One of these was that the court was not legally in session at the time of the trial, and as we think this assignment is well taken other questions raised are moot.

The suit was filed July 6, 1935. The circuit court convened July 22, 1935, and remained in session until July 31, when there was an adjournment. As to the date to which the court adjourned the presiding judge made the following statement: “The petit jury was excused until the 4th day of November and the court was adjourned. The court ordered that the court would be adjourned until the 4th day of November. * * * The court has never made any order vacating* the order which had previously been made adjourning the court until the 4th day of November.”

The clerk of the court was also called as a witness. He produced the record of the proceedings of the court which he had made and entered as follows: Opening-order made July 22; an order adjourning court until July 23; an order adjourning the court until July 29'; an order adjourning court until July 30, and an order adjourning until July 31. An order was entered on the last-mentioned date adjourning- court until 9 a. m., August 5, 1935. A session of the court was held on that date and proceedings had which were authorized only at a session of court. The clerk testified that he left the records of August 5 open and entered no adjourning order on that date, but that an adjourned day of court was held on August 21, but that, so far as he knew or as was shown by the records of the court, no adjourning order to August 21 was made. However, the record of the proceedings of August 21 recites that the court met on that date pursuant to adjournment, the regular judge of the court being present and presiding, when the proceeding's there recited were had and done. He also testified that he entered no adjourning order at the close of the record of the proceedings on August 21, as he did not know when the judge would return, but that the judge did return on September 11, at which time he entered an order adjourning the court to the last-mentioned date. The record of the proceedings of September 11 recites that the court convened pursuant to adjournment on that date, with the regular judge present and presiding, when certain judgments were entered in the proceedings of that day. A part of the proceedings entered as of September 11 was an order adjourning court until October 17. The clerk testified that this adjourning order entered in the proceedings of September 11 was not entered as of that date, as he did not know, at the time court adjourned on September 11, when the judge would return, but that he did return on October 17. He then entered an adjourning order as of September 11. The court record was introduced showing that court met on October 17 pursuant to adjournment, with the regular judge present and presiding. No adjourning order was entered in the proceedings of October 17.

The clerk further testified that he “had a little record book,” which was the minutes book he kept on his desk while court was in session, but was not the regular permanent record book of the proceedings of the court, in which he noted all court proceedings as they occurred, and on August 5 he entered a notation in the minutes that the court adjourned until November 4. At the close of the proceedings on July 31 he entered in the court records an order adjourning court to November 4, but when the judge appeared and held court on August 5 he changed the adjourning order to show that the court had adjourned — not to November 4, but to August 5.

Upon this testimony of the clerk, and this statement by the presiding .judge, the order showing an adjournment to August 5 was changed to read that the court had adjourned, on July 31, to November 4, whereupon, over the objections of the appellant, the trial proceeded to a verdict and the judgment here appealed from.

Sessions of circuit court are of three kinds under the practice in this State: (1) Regular sessions; (2) special or called sessions; (3) adjourned sessions. It is not contemplated that there should be any uncertainty as to when these sessions are to be held. It would be an intolerable condition if litigants, whose rights are to be adjudged, should remain or be in doubt as to when the court will convene before which they are required to appear.

All persons have notices of regular terms of court, for these meet at the time appointed and fixed by law. Special terms of court may be called pursuant' to the provisions of §§ 2111-2223, Crawford & Moses’ Digest. The statutes cited require the order of a court calling the session to be entered by the clerk on the records of the court, and- it has been consistently held, since the early case of Dunn v. State, 2 Ark. 230, that the failure of the court to enter the order as. required by .statute invalidated the proceedings of the special term.

There are also adjourned sessions,, referred to in § 2112, Crawfotd & Moses’.Digest, as special adjourned sessions.. That section reads ,as follows:. “Special adjourned sessions of any court may be held in continuation of the regular term, upon its being so ordered by the court or judge in term time, and entered by the clerk on the record of the court.” This statute, brought forward from the Revised Statutes, chap. 43, § 28, was given the following construction in the case of Davies v. State, 39 Ark. 448: “An adjourning order to a distant day, made by the court, is as effectual an entry on the record of an order for an adjourned session, as can be made. There is no new term of the court. It is simply a continuation of the present one.”

It was held in the case of Burks v. Cantley, 191 Ark. 347, 86 S. W. (2d) 34, that an omitted adjourning order may be entered nunc pro tunc, provided the day to which the adjournment was taken was not in conflict with the regular terms fixed by law in other counties of said court. So, that, the order of the court, entered November 4 nunc pro tunc, correcting the adjourning order of July 31, would have saved the adjourned term held on November 4 if there had been no other orders. But there were other orders, and they may not be disregarded as clerical misprisions, for the reason that the records of the court not only recite that the adjourned sessions above mentioned would be held, but the undisputed testimony shows that they Avere actually held.

In the case of Roberts & Schaeffer Co. v. Jones, 82 Ark. 188, 101 S. W. 165, the validity of an adjourned term of the circuit court was involved. A record entry was made subsequent to the regular term showing that the term had been adjourned to a certain future date. It was said that the record entry sought to be corrected, while presumed to be correct, did not import absolute verity when attacked directly, and not collaterally. There is involved here a direct — and not a collateral — attack upon the order of the court correcting the original adjourning order made July 31.

When the facts herein recited are taken into account, it cannot be said that there were no adjourned sessions of court intervening between July 31 and November 4. Now, valid sessions of the court might have been held on ■each of these intervening days, and then on November 4 also.

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Related

Strahan v. the Atlanta Natl. Bank of Atlanta, Texas
176 S.W.2d 237 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1943)
Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Saunders
104 S.W.2d 1062 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1937)

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Bluebook (online)
94 S.W.2d 703, 192 Ark. 783, 1936 Ark. LEXIS 162, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/magnolia-petroleum-co-v-saunders-ark-1936.