Tucker v. Bank of Ashe

Pee Oueiam. There are many exceptions and assignments of error made by defendants that we think unnecessary to consider. We have read the record and the briefs of the litigants with care. From the record in this Court the judgment is ambiguous and not supported by the record. Defendants agreed to nothing and stood on their legal rights which they had a right to do. *122 In Yol. 1, 2d ed., Black on Judgments, part section 123 pp. 119-180, speaking to the subject we find: “The rule for the construction of ambiguous judgments is clearly stated by the Supreme Court of Kansas in the following language: ‘Wherever the entry of a judgment is so obscure as not to clearly express the exact determination of the court, . reference may he had to the pleadings and the other proceedings; and if, with the light thus thrown upon such entry, its obscurity is dispelled and its intended signification made apparent, the judgment will be upheld and carried into effect in the same manner as though its meaning and intent were made clear and manifest by its own terms.’ This rule also applies to decrees in equity.- The meaning and effect of a decree may, in case of doubt, be ascertained by reference to the bill and other proceedings, particularly when these are referred to in the decree itself. And for this purpose, recourse may be had to duly attested stipulations between the parties. But where a judgment refers to the findings for certain data, and the findings do not contain the data, but refer again to the pleadings, which are also uncertain, the judgment will be reversed for uncertainty.” In Southerland v. Crump, 199 N. C., at p. 113, “With respect to a disputed question of fact we can know judicially only what the record discloses.” For the reasons stated above there must be a New trial.