McDonald v. . Hoffman

MaNNING, J., after stating the case. The exceptions noted to the foreclosure action against Thos. G. Hall and wife, Mary, upon the ground that summons was not in fact served, cannot be sustained in the face of the recital in the judgment or decree in that action that personal service was made. This has been uniformly ruled by this Court, the proper proceeding being a motion in the original action to set aside the judgment, and not by collateral attack. Bailey v. Hopkins, 152 N. C., 748; Yarborough v. Moore, 151 N. C., 116; Smathers v. Sprouse, 144 N. C., 637; Harrison v. Hargrove, 120 N. C., 96; Doyle v. Brown, 72 N. C., 393. In addition, the rule of law applicable to cases of innocent purchasers for value of property sold under judicial proceedings, is stated with great force and clearness by Rufin, J., in Sutton v. Schonwald, 86 N. C., 198, a case repeatedly cited with approval by this Court: “In such cases the law proceeds upon the ground, as well of public policy as upon principles of equity. Purchasers should be able to rely upon the judgments and decrees of the courts of the country; and, although they may know of their liability to be reversed, yet they *257 Lave a right, so long as they stand, to presume that they have been rightly and regularly rendered, and they are not expected to take notice of the errors of the court or the laches of parties. The contrary doctrine would be fatal to judicial sales and values of titles derived under them, as no one would buy at a price at all approximating the true value of property, if he supposed that at some distant day his title might be declared void, because of some irregularity in the proceedings altogether unsuspected by him, and of which he had no opportunity to inform himself.” Millsaps v. Estes, 137 N. C., 544. The judgment of the court, having competent jurisdiction of the parties and subject-matter of the action, having divested the title of Mrs. Hall, and that having, by mesne conveyances, become vested in plaintiff McDonald, we see no ground upon which Mrs. Hall can sustain her claim of title to the land. Her only claim is that her title was not divested by the action to foreclose her mortgage; in this she is mistaken. As none of the other defendants appealed, we will not consider the other exceptions noted in the record, as they affected the rights of the non-appealing defendants and in no way affected the title asserted by Mrs. Hall. A defective taking of the private examination of Mrs. McLauchlin could not .restore a title to Mrs. Hall which had long prior thereto been effectually and completely divested by an unreversed judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction. The judgment is, therefore, Affirmed.