O'Neill v. Potvin

93 P. 20, 13 Idaho 721, 1907 Ida. LEXIS 89
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 12, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 93 P. 20 (O'Neill v. Potvin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
O'Neill v. Potvin, 93 P. 20, 13 Idaho 721, 1907 Ida. LEXIS 89 (Idaho 1907).

Opinions

SULLIVAN, J.

This is an action to quiet title to about 157 acres of land, as per government survey, situated in Nez Perce county. Appellant in his complaint claims title, in fee, to said lands and alleges that respondent makes some claim thereto adverse to him, and that such claim is without any right whatever, and prays to have the title thereto quieted in himself. The respondent answered, denying the ownership of said lands in the plaintiff, and avers that respondent is the owner of such land, and for a further answer avers that he obtained title to said land under sale by execution issued in the case of Edmund D. Potvin v. William Malanfant, to enforce a judgment rendered in the district court in and for Nez Perce county, which judgment was against Malanfant and in favor of the respondent. After a trial of the cause, judgment was entered in favor of the respondent. A motion for a new trial was overruled and this appeal is from the judgment and order denying the motion for a new trial. The appellant bases his title to said land upon a deed to said premises from Malanfant to the appellant.

The real controversy arises over the validity of the judgment in the case of Potvin v. Malanfant, for unless that deed is void the appellant has no title and is not entitled to have the title to said land quieted in himself. Counsel for appellant contend that said judgment was absolutely void by reason of the failure of Potvin in his suit against Malanfant to get service of summons on him by publication as required by law. The first question presented is whether this is a collateral or direct attack on that judgment. This action was instituted to quiet the title to said land in the appellant. That was its ultimate object and purpose, and in order to do that, said judgment in the Malanfant case must be held to be void. This action is clearly a collateral attack on that judgment. In 1 Black on Judgments, section 252, the author [725]*725defines a collateral attack as follows: “But if the action or proceeding has an independent purpose and contemplates some other relief or result, although the overturning of the judgment may be important or even necessary to its success, then the attack upon the judgment is collateral and falls within the rule.” “Collateral” is used as the antithesis of “direct.” To constitute a direct attack upon a judgment, it is said that it is necessary that a proceeding be instituted for that purpose. In said section 252, the author states: “If an appeal is taken from a judgment or writ of error, or if a motion be made to affect or set it aside on account of some alleged irregularity, the attack is obviously direct, the sole object of the proceeding being to deny and disprove the apparent validity of the judgment.” The appellant seeks in this action to obtain some other relief than that of setting aside said judgment. The main object is to quiet the title of said land in himself, and although the overturning of that judgment is necessary to his success, it does not make this action any the less a collateral attack upon said judgment.

The next question to be considered is: What record may be used in a collateral attack upon a judgment of this kind? By the provisions of section 4456, it is provided that the judgment-roll in cases where the complaint is not answered, shall be composed of “the summons with the affidavit or proof of service and the complaint with a memorandum indorsed thereon that the default of the defendant in not answering was entered, and a copy of the judgment.” That section was adopted from the Code of Civil Procedure, section 670, of California, and in construing that section, the supreme court of California in a number of decisions have held that the judgment-roll in cases like the one at bar under that section of the statute, consists of the summons^ the affidavit or proof of service, the complaint with the default indorsed thereon, and a copy of the judgment. (Halm v. Kelley, 34 Cal. 391.) That decision was rendered in 1868 and is reported in 94 Am. Dec., at page 742, and to that is attached an exhaustive note by the learned author, Freeman, which is very instructive, and cites many of the leading de[726]*726eisions that have approved or disapproved of the doctrine laid down in the Hahn-Kelley case. That action, like the one at bar, was an action to quiet title to a tract of land. It appears that the respondent Kelley brought an action in the fifteenth district court for the city and county of San Francisco against William Carey Jones, in which action he obtained judgment and thereafter issued .execution thereon to the sheriff, who levied upon the lands in controversy and advertised the same to be sold, and was about to sell the undivided one-quarter of the same as the property of said Jones, when the action of Hahn v. Kelley was commenced to quiet his title and restrain the sale. In that action the respondent Kelley answered and when the cause came on for trial, introduced, among other evidence, the decree in the ease of Hawes v. Jones and Brown, the order of sale, the sale and deed by the sheriff to Jones, and the conveyance to the appellant by the latter, and then rested. The respondents then introduced in evidence, without objection, the remainder of what was claimed to be by them the judgment-roll in that action, which, as claimed by them, showed that an unsuccessful attempt had been made to serve Jones by publication of summons, but in consequence of certain alleged defects said service was a nullity and that the decree was therefore absolutely void. The papers thus introduced in evidence by respondent consisted of the affidavit of plaintiff in that action to procure an order for the service of summons therein on said Jones by the publication of the same, the order of the judge directing the publication of the summons, the affidavit of the publisher of the paper in which said summons was published, and an affidavit showing that said summons had personally been served on said Jones in Washington, D. C. The affidavit of the plaintiff and the order for the publication of the summons were objected to as irrelevant and incompetent because they constituted no part of the judgment-roll in that action. It will be observed from that statement of facts that the rule of law applicable to that case ought to apply to the question under consideration in this case. In that ease the court held, that in a collateral attack on a judgment, only [727]*727such facts and circumstances can be shown or relied on in support of such attack as affirmatively appear on the face of the record or what under the law constitute the judgment-roll. So in a collateral attack on a judgment under our law, the only evidence that is admissible in support of such attack is the judgment-roll, and if that shows on its face the court had no jurisdiction to try the cause, the judgment is absolutely void.

The case of Hahn v. Kelley, supra, has been very extensively cited, not only by the supreme court of California, but'by the courts of many other states, and the rule laid down in that case has to some extent been modified or overruled by subsequent decisions of national and state courts. Mr. Freeman says in the note referred to that the first case in which the doctrines of the principal case were called in question is Galpin v. Page, 3 Saw. 93, Fed. Cas. No. 5206. Mr. Justice Field delivered the opinion in that case sitting as presiding judge of the United States circuit court for the ninth circuit. In the course of that opinion it is. said: “The first position ' (referring to Hahn v. Kelley),

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Bluebook (online)
93 P. 20, 13 Idaho 721, 1907 Ida. LEXIS 89, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oneill-v-potvin-idaho-1907.