Hoffman, Eavey & Co. v. Shupp

Bryan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Catherine A. Shupp, a married woman suing by her next friend, filed a bill in equity against Hoffman, Eavey and others, for an injunction to restrain the execution of a judgment which they had obtained against her. After . answer by the defendants, the Court below passed a decree for a perpetual injunction 'and the defendants appealed to this Court. The evidence shows that on the 25th day of June, 1877, Mrs. Shupp executed her promissoiy note for the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars to the defendants, and signed an order for a judgment by confession, and that two days later the judgment was entered.

She was then and is now a married woman, and her husband did not join in the execution of the note, and did not sign the order for a confession of the judgment. In September, 1888, a scire facias was issued on this judgment, and it was revived in due course by the fiat executio. On appeal to this Court the decision below was sustained. The principal question in this Court was whether the defendant in the judgment could plead her coverture, in answer to the scire facias, and we held that it could not be allowed.

We simply adhered to the well-established rule that no defence could be pleaded to the scire facias which might have been set up in bar of the original action ; 72 Md. 360 . The revival of the judgment worked no change in its nature, character and effect as it originally existed. It was said in Moore v. Garrettson, 6 Md. 448: “ The office of a scire facias to revive a judgment is to reinvest it with all the powers, attributes and conditions which originally belonged to it, and which have been wholly or in part suspended by lapse