Oringer v. Zimmerman

4 Pa. D. & C.2d 81, 1955 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 162
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Lancaster County
DecidedJanuary 21, 1955
Docketno. 16
StatusPublished

This text of 4 Pa. D. & C.2d 81 (Oringer v. Zimmerman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Lancaster County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Oringer v. Zimmerman, 4 Pa. D. & C.2d 81, 1955 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 162 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1955).

Opinion

Wissler, J.,

On April 9, 1953, plaintiff herein caused a judgment to be entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County to September term, 1950, no. 182, against the defendant, Phaon P. Zimmerman. The judgment was entered after plaintiff, Sanford G. Oringer, had filed a complaint in trespass against defendant in the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County. The Harrisburg Railways Company was subsequently joined as additional defendant. A jury trial was held from June 16 to June 24, 1952, on which date the jury awarded the sum of $30,-000 in favor of plaintiff, and the original defendant presented his written motion for new trial, and the additional defendant presented a motion for judgment in its favor. The court directed the court stenographer to transcribe and file the notes of testimony which were accordingly filed on December 5, 1952. On April 2, 1953, all of the motions were withdrawn by the respective parties and receipt by plaintiff of the sum of $8,929.74 was acknowledged, and on that same day judgment was entered on the verdict.

On August 9,1954, a certified copy of the record and docket entries of September term, 1950, no. 182, Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County, was filed in the office of the Prothonotary of Lancaster County, and judgment was entered thereon to no. 2120 of 1954, under authority of the Act of April 16,1840, P. L. 410, 12 PS §891. As certified by the Prothonotary of Dauphin County the record did not include the notes of testimony.

Attachment execution was issued on the judgment in Lancaster County against Old Guard Mutual Insurance Company, garnishee, and on September 10, 1954, defendant filed a motion to quash the writ of attachment for the reason that the certified copy of the record filed was not a whole record as required by the Act of April 16, 1840, P. L. 410, 12 PS §891.

[83]*83It is this motion that is presently before us and raises one question, namely: Where a request is made for a new trial after a verdict in favor of plaintiff, and in accordance with the request notes of testimony are filed by order of the court and the motion is subsequently withdrawn and judgment entered on the verdict with no- appeal from the judgment being thereafter taken, is it necessary that a certified copy of the whole record, as required by the Act of April 16, 1840, P. L. 410, include notes of testimony.

The transfer of judgments between the courts of common pleas of this Commonwealth is governed by the Act of April 16,1840, P. L. 410,12 PS §891, which provides:

“In addition to the remedies now provided by law, hereafter any judgments, in any district court, or court of common pleas in Pennsylvania, may be transferred from the court in which they are entered, to any other district court, or court of common pleas in this commonwealth, by filing of record in said other court a certified copy of the whole record in the case; and any prothonotary receiving such certified copy of record, in any case in which judgment has been entered by another court, or in another court, by transcript from justices of the peace, shall file the same, and forthwith transcribe the docket entry thereof into his own docket, and the case may then be proceeded in, and the judgments and costs collected by executions, bill of discovery, or attachment, as prescribed by the act entitled ‘An act relating to executions,’ passed June 16,1836; and as to lien, revivals, executions, and so forth, it shall have the same force and effect, and no other, as if the judgment had been entered, or the transcript been originally filed, in the same court to which it may thus be transferred.”

The effect of such transfers was passed upon in First National Bank and Trust Company of Bethlehem v. Laubach, 333 Pa. 344, 349, where it was stated:

[84]*84“Section 1 of the Act of April 16, 1840, P. L. 410 (‘construed’ by section 11 of the Act of April 16,1845, P. L. 538), provides for the transfer of judgments from one court of common pleas to another, and that ‘as to lien, revivals, executions, and so forth,’ the transferred judgment ‘shall have the same force and effect, and no other,’ as if the judgment had been entered originally in the court to which the transfer was made. It is to be noted that this act is entitled ‘An Act Relating to Executions, . . .’ and it does not undertake to.deal with a transferred judgment other than for purposes of realizing thereon. Such a transferred judgment is merely ‘a quasi judgment, and that too only for limited purposes’: Brandt’s Appeal, 16 Pa. 343, 346. It has been held time and again that the court of the county to which the judgment is transferred has no power over it except for purposes of execution, and cannot inquire into its merits. That can be done only by the court in which it was originally obtained: King v. Nimick, 34 Pa. 297; Mellon v. Guthrie, 51 Pa. 116; Beck v. Church, 113 Pa. 200; Nelson v. Guffey, 131 Pa. 273; Lehigh & New England R. R. Co. v. Hanhauser, 222 Pa. 248; Shotts & Co. v. Agnew & Barnett, 81 Pa. Superior Ct. 458, 461.”

The court to which the transfer is made may, however, determine from inspection of the certified record whether there has been a compliance with the act authorizing the transfer: Wilkinson v. Conrad, 10 W. N. C. 22.

The only question involved in the instant case is whether the term “whole record” as contained in the act is to be construed as requiring inclusion of the notes of testimony. At common law the record did not include notes of testimony and they could not become a part of the record without a statute, as was stated by Chief Justice Gibson in Middleton v. the Commonwealth, 2 Watts 285, 286:

[85]*85“To the component parts of a judicial record, as it is defined by the common law, nothing can be added without legislative sanction. . . .”

In the dissolution of an attachment under the Act of March 17,1869, P. L. 8, the Supreme Court in Elias A. Hall et al. v. D. C. Oyster et al., 168 Pa. 399, said that an appeal from an order dissolving is in fact merely a certiorari, and must be so treated. It brings up for review nothing but the record which does not include the evidence on which the court acted in dissolving the attachment. Also see Slingluff, Johns & Co. v. J. G. Sisler, 193 Pa. 264.

In Schwemmer and Niermann’s License, 56 Pa. Superior Ct. 320, it was held that on an appeal from the order of the court of quarter sessions refusing a liquor license, the appellate court cannot consider the evidence although the lower court may have voluntarily sealed a bill of exceptions, and directed the transcript of the evidence to be filed; and that the Act of May 11, 1911, P. L. 279, which provides that where the evidence in any case is transcribed and the transcript duly certified, it shall be filed of record in the case and shall be considered a part of the record, has no application and that act relates only to appeals following trials.

Defendant in support of his motion cites Williams v. Van Kemp, 370 Pa. 359. This case expressly held that an exemplified copy of the appearance docket and the judgment docket does not constitute the “whole record,” as required by the Act, and that the Act specifically requires that there be filed of record a certified copy not of the docket entries but of the whole record in the case. The court, however, nowhere defines “whole record.” In a second appeal of this case in 379 Pa. 149 (Williams v.

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Related

Williams v. Van Camp
108 A.2d 726 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1954)
Williams v. Van Kemp
88 A.2d 49 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1952)
First National Bank and Tr. Co. v. Laubach
5 A.2d 139 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1939)
Shotts Co. v. Agnew, and Barnett
81 Pa. Super. 458 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1923)
Updergraff v. Perry
4 Pa. 291 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1846)
Brandt's Appeal
16 Pa. 343 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1851)
King v. Nimick
34 Pa. 297 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1859)
Mellon v. Guthrie
51 Pa. 116 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1866)
Beck v. Church
6 A. 57 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1886)
Nelson v. Guffey
18 A. 1073 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1890)
Hall v. Oyster
31 A. 1007 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1895)
Slingluff, Johns & Co. v. Sisler
44 A. 423 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1899)
Lehigh & New England Railroad v. Hanhauser
70 A. 1089 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1908)
Schwemmer & Niermann's License
56 Pa. Super. 320 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1914)
Middleton v. Commonwealth
2 Watts 285 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1834)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
4 Pa. D. & C.2d 81, 1955 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 162, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oringer-v-zimmerman-pactcompllancas-1955.