Coakley v. Rickard

Plaintiff is a physician in New York who attended defendant’s daughter in a severe illness at the father’s request. Defendant is a resident of the state of Nevada. Plaintiff’s bill has not been paid, and the only dispute upon the merits is as to the amount. Not being able to collect it by other means, plaintiff assigned his claim to a resident of Nevada and obtained judgment by default. Defendant was subsequently found here and served with process in an action upon that judgment, which had been assigned back to plaintiff. At the same time certain moneys claimed to belong to him were attached in the hands of a third party. He appeared generally in the action here, but judgment against him was granted upon the pleadings, and the time to appeal therefrom has long expired.

This is a motion to vacate the judgment. The ground of the motion is that after the judgment and after the time to appeal therefrom had! expired, upon allegations of fraud, the court in Nevada granted a motion to open his default in the case in that state, and gave him 10 days to answer the complaint therein upon payment of costs, and it is conceded by the parties here that those costs have been paid. Defendant’s theory is that this order of the Nevada court knocked the sole prop from under the New York judgment, so that the latter fell simultaneously to the ground. To me, however, the precise opposite seems to be the case. It stands adjudicated in New York, upon the appearance of both parties, that there is a valid judgment in Nevada for a particular sum in favor of a party to whose rights the plaintiff has succeeded. The New York judgment must be opened before the Nevada judgment can be opened. Everett v. Everett, 180 N. Y. 452 , 73 N. E. 231 , overruling s. c., 75 App. Div. 369 , 78 N. Y. Supp. 193 . See, also, Bidwell v. Bidwell, 139 N. C.