Mozley v. Helmick

18 P.2d 1024, 37 N.M. 97
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 30, 1933
DocketNo. 3750.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 18 P.2d 1024 (Mozley v. Helmick) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mozley v. Helmick, 18 P.2d 1024, 37 N.M. 97 (N.M. 1933).

Opinion

SADLER, J.

This is an original proceeding in this court for writ of prohibition directed to Milton J. Helmick, as Judge of the district court of Bernalillo county, J. S. Brown Mercantile Company, Oudabac & Co., and George Potteiger, as respondents, to restrain respondents from further proceeding in a certain. cause pending in the district court of said county. Upon the filing of the petition herein, the alternative writ was issued, and now, after the filing of briefs and the presentation of arguments, the matter is before us for final disposition.

The facts out of which the proceeding arises, as disclosed by the petition for prohibition and returns thereto, are these: In a suit distinct from that in which proceedings are sought to be restrained by prohibition, one Charles A. Mozley, as plaintiff, recovered personal judgment against George Potteiger, as defendant, with foreclosure of a mechanic’s lien on lot 2 in block 8 of the Alvarado addition to the city of Albuquerque. This judgment was signed and entered on August 31, 1931. It authorized immediate execution upon the money award contained therein, allowed $50 as attorney’s fees to plaintiff for services of his attorney in foreclosing the mechanic's lien, and in accordance with the statute applicable, section 1 of chapter 149, New Mexico Session Laws of 1931, contained a stay order against the sale under the foreclosure for the period of sixty days from entry of the judgment.

On October 1, 1931, more than thirty days after entry of the "aforesaid judgment, the defendant filed a motion in the cause to set aside said judgment, urging in support thereof, among other things, that the court had improperly rendered personal judgment for attorney’s fees; that the warrant for immediate execution on the personal judgment of which plaintiff was seeking to avail himself by a levy on certain personal property of defendant was wholly inconsistent with, and contradictory to, the sixty-day stay order upon the sale under foreclosure contained in the same judgment.

After hearing on the motion, and on October 8, 1931, the court, upon the ground that the claimed irreconcilable and contradictory provisions in the judgment constituted an irregularity, entered its order vacating said judgment “for the purpose of entering a correct decree herein,” and as a part of the same order recalled the execution issued upon said judgment, and declared the same void.

Thereupon the plaintiff Mozley prayed and was granted an appeal to the Supreme Oourt from the order setting aside said judgment, with supersedeas in the sum of $800, which was furnished, the appeal order being conditioned that plaintiff, after filing supersedeas, mig-ht proceed with his execution theretofore, levied. The appeal was duly prosecuted in this court, and our decision in the cause entitled Mozley v. Potteiger, 37 N. M. 91, 18 P. (2d) 1021, is handed down contemporaneously with this opinion.

The foregoing recitals portray the status of the suit of Mozley v. Potteiger, with one possible exception, at the time of the institution of the suit in which proceedings are herein sought to be prohibited. The possible exception mentioned is this: Presumably the plaintiff Mozley, through his attorney, was proceeding to advertise an execution sale of the property levied upon as aforesaid. Thereupon Potteiger, the defendant in the above-mentioned suit, joined by J. g. Brown Mercantile Company and Oudabac & Co., as coplaintiffs, instituted a separate suit in the district court of Bernalillo county against said Charles A. Mozley, Joseph Gill, as his attorney and claimed assignee, and Eelipe Zamora, as sheriff of said county, seeking an injunction to restrain the execution sale about to be held under the authority of the judgment entered in the suit first above mentioned. As a predicate for the relief prayed, the judgment in said suit was attacked upon substantially the same grounds urged in support of the motion to set the same aside as above recited. In addition thereto, it was alleged that certain personal property with title reserved to Oudabac & Co. under conditional sales contract, and certain other personal property upon which J. S. Brown Mercantile Company claimed a lien under chattel mortgage, both the conditional sales contract and the chattel mortgage assertedly being duly filed with the county clerk of said county, had been seized under the writ of execution by the sheriff of said county, and that such officer was about to expose said property for sale and sell the same in violation of the rights of the holders under such instrumenta As a further basis for equitable relief, it was asserted that the execution -had been levied upon certain real estate, ownership not fixed, but including the lot against which the mechanic’s lien had been foreclosed in the first suit, and that a cloud thus was threatened upon the title to'said real estate.

As above noted, the plaintiffs prayed that the decree entered in the first suit be declared null and void; or, in the alternative, that the court recall and cancel said execution, and that defendants be restrained from proceeding further thereunder.

Upon the filing of such complaint, the court issued an order to’ show cause against the defendants named therein. The defendants appeared and demurred to the complaint upon grounds, among others, that the judgment sought to be vacated" was impervious to collateral attack, and because an appeal had been taken to this court from the order vacating said judgment. The trial court pending hearing on the demurrer, and evidently in the hope that the parties might come to an, amicable settlement without a hearing, by various interlocutory orders postponed the execution sale from time to time, the last postponement being to November 30, 1931. Prior to 1 the hour of sale and on the last-mentioned date, prohibition was applied for in this court and the alternative writ issued as hereinabove shown.

The sole question for determination by us is whether the district court of Bernalillo county was proceeding within its jurisdiction in entertaining and hearing the plaintiffs’ complaint for injunction in the last-mentioned suit. If it was, then we are powerless to restrain it by prohibition. If it was not, we will, upon a proper showing, issue the writ.

In resolving this question, we are confronted with a peculiar situation, in this: Potteiger, one of the coplaintiffs in the second suit, is the judgment defendant in the first suit now pending here on appeal. A serious question arises', viz., whether, as to Potteiger, the district court of Bernalillo county was not by virtue of the appeal .divested of all jurisdiction touching the issues in that cause which as a coplaintiff he seeks again to raise in the second suit. See Floersheim v. Board of Commissioners of Harding County, 28 N. M. 330, 212 P. 451; Crabtree v. Board of County Commissioners (N. M.) 18 P.(2d) 657, 1 just decided. In fact, for the purposes of this opinion, we shall assume that, were the second suit prosecuted solely by him as plaintiff, the district court would be without jurisdiction to entertain it. This still leaves for determination the jurisdiction of the district court to entertain the suit at the instance of Potteiger’s coplaintiffs.

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18 P.2d 1024, 37 N.M. 97, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mozley-v-helmick-nm-1933.