The Circuit Court for the District of Columbia has authority to
adjourn to a distant day, and the adjourned session is considered
as the same term.
Where the regular term began on the third Monday in April and
the court continued to sit
de die in diem until 16 May,
when it adjourned to the fourth Monday of June,
held that
a defendant, against whom an office judgment had been entered on 16
May had a right under the laws and practice of Virginia to appear
at the adjourned session and have the default set aside on giving
special bail and pleading issuably.
Page 19 U. S. 107
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the
Court.
This is a writ of error to a judgment rendered by the Circuit
Court for the District of Columbia, sitting in Alexandria, in an
action of debt, and the case depends on the laws of Virginia as
they stood when jurisdiction over the District was first exercised
by Congress.
By the law of Virginia, the proceedings, until an issue is made
up in a cause, are taken in the clerk's office at monthly rules,
and judgments by default become final on the last day of the
succeeding term, till which day the defendant in any such action
has a legal right to set the judgment aside and to plead to issue.
The circuit court held its regular session in April, 1818, and
continued to sit regularly till 16 May, when it adjourned to the
fourth Monday of the following June. The clerk, considering the day
on which the court adjourned as the last day of the term, and the
judgments at the rules as having on that day become final, issued
an execution on one of these judgments, which had been obtained by
the plaintiffs against Cave Withers and his common bail. When the
court met in June, the defendant appeared and, on motion, was
allowed to set aside the office judgment, give special bail, and
plead to issue. The execution was consequently quashed. In the
course of the term, judgment
Page 19 U. S. 108
was confessed by the defendant, for the sum claimed in the
declaration and a writ of error was then sued out, the object of
which was to reverse the last judgment and set aside all
proceedings subsequent to 16 May on the idea that the judgment
rendered at the rules became final on that day.
The sole question in the cause is whether the adjournment from
the 16th of May to the fourth Monday in June was a continuation of
the April term or constituted a distinct term.
There being nothing in any act of Congress which prevents the
courts of the district from exercising a power common to all courts
-- that of adjourning to a distant day -- the adjournment on the
16th of May to the fourth Monday in June would be a continuance of
the same term unless a special act of Congress expressly enabling
the courts of the district to hold adjourned sessions may be
supposed to vary the law of the case. That act is in these words:
"And the said courts are hereby invested with the same power of
holding adjourned sessions that are exercised by the courts of
Maryland." These words do not in themselves purport to vary the
character of the session. They do not make the adjourned session a
distinct session. They were probably inserted from abundant
caution, and are to be ascribed to an apprehension that courts did
not possess the power to adjourn to a distant day until they should
be enabled so to do by a legislative act. But this act, affirming a
preexisting power, ought not to be construed to vary the nature of
that power unless words are employed which manifest
Page 19 U. S. 109
such intention. In this act there are no such words, unless they
are found in the reference to the courts of Maryland. But on
inquiry we find that in Maryland, an "adjourned session" is
considered as the same session with that at which the adjournment
was made. Since, then, the term at which this conditional or office
judgment was to become final was still continuing when it was set
aside, and the defendant permitted to plead to the declaration,
there was no error in that proceeding.
Judgment affirmed.