Ringgold v. Emory

Mason, J., delivered the opinion of the court. The Court of Appeals have had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion, that the order of the chancellor, passed the ³⁵⁰ 25th June 1849, from which the present appeal appears to have been taken, was irregular, and of no force and effect whatever. By the order passed 19th July 1848, in our judgment, the whole case had been dismissed, and thus finally disposed of. This conclusion is not only clear, from the fact that the order, in express terms, dismissed the original petition, the effect of which was to have dismissed all the subsequent proceedings which were based upon that petition, but it appears from the language of the order itself, and by the opinion filed in the cause, that the chancellor had in fact considered the whole proceedings, and designed to dismiss them.

The whole case having thus been disposed of and at an end, it is manifest, that any subsequent order in the premises would have been irregular and inoperative, unless based upon some new formal proceeding, instituted to revive the defunct case, which it is not pretended was done in this instance. From the record before us it is quite manifest, that the last order was passed improvidently, and we are satisfied none such would have passed, if the existence of the previous order . had been brought to the notice of the chancellor. Upon this point we have no difficulty; but the court feel some embarrassment in determining upon the proper mode, by which they are to get