Opinion

Sears v. Weimer

  • 143 Ohio St. 312
  • 143 Ohio St. (N.S.) 312
  • 28 Ohio Op. 270
  • 55 N.E.2d 413
  • 1944 Ohio LEXIS 414
Court
Ohio Supreme Court
Filed
May 17, 1944
Status
Published
Author
Weygandt
On the bench
Turner, Matthias, Zimmerman, Bell, Weygandt, Hart, Williams
Cited by
264 cases

The opinion

Weygandt, C. J.,

dissenting. With due respect for the majority opinion, it is submitted that no question of service of summons is here involved.

It is true that the original service of summons in this case was made by publication, and if this wére the only manner in which the trial court obtained jurisdiction of the defendant’s person, the limitation of Section 11646, General Code, would apply. However, the additional and controlling fact is that after the service by publication the defendant

entered

his general

appearance

by obtaining leave of the -court and filing both an answer and a voluntary cross-petition asking affirmative relief. Section 11646 relates to

service

alone and prohibits a revivor of a judgment by publication when the original

service

was of a degree lower than personal. No mention is made of an entry of appearance which, of course, involves no service of summons.

Section 11287, General Code, appearing in a different chapter, is quoted as providing that “the voluntary appearance of a defendant, is equivalent to service.” But this is far from declaring that entry of appearance is a form of service. There can be no more effective method for a court to obtain jurisdiction of a party than for that person to come into the court voluntarily; and when this occurs service is not

*318

involved. Nevertheless,, under the majority view there cannot be such a revivor in the absence of original personal service even though the defendant voluntarily appeared in court and submitted himself to its jurisdiction. It seems unnecessary to infer a legislative intent to require a vain thing.

It is contended further that the defendant’s entry of appearance was not voluntary. Assuming that the answer was filed involuntarily for the purpose of defense, the same contention hardly can be made with reference to the cross-petition asking affirmative relief for the defendant.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed and that of the trial court affirmed.

Hart, J., concurs in the foregoing dissenting opinion.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

A word about cookies

We need a few to keep you signed in and the library working. The rest help us see which pages people use and where they get stuck. They stay off unless you say yes.