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I BROWN.
VERNON v. VERNON [1740]

defendant's answering in time; the Court ordered, that on the plaintiff's giving security within a fortnight after the end of the term, to be accountable from the time of the judgment in ejectment, for the rents and profits of the lands in question, and pay costs in case they should be adjudged against her at the hearing, and to revive, in case of abatement, the injunction should be continued till the hearing of the cause, or further order; but in default thereof, that the injunction should be dissolved without further motion; and the plaintiff was ordered to speed her cause to a hearing, some time in the then next Trinity term; the defendants agreeing to appear gratis, and pray no day over.

On the 15th of November 1738, the respondent obtained another order, that the plaintiff should speed her cause to a hearing, or otherwise, that the injunction should be dissolved; and which injunction being afterwards dissolved, the respondent, by virtue and in execution of the judgment he had obtained at law, was by the Sheriff put into possession of the two-thirds of Hollybrooks.

The said Jane Vernon, instead of proceeding to hear her cause, presented a petition to the House of Lords in Great-Britain, stating the several matters aforesaid, and praying leave to bring an appeal from the decree of dismission of the 14th of May 1686.

And in support of this petition it was urged (D. Ryder), that Mrs. Vernon could not proceed in her cause in the Court of Chancery in Ireland, till this inrolled decree of dismission was reversed, and that the only method she had to reverse it, was by an appeal to their Lordships here; but being out of time, according to the strict rule of the House, she could not bring such appeal without leave, and which, considering the very peculiar circumstances of her case, she hoped to obtain; otherwise the long acquiescence of those who claimed under Colonel Vernon, both before and after [447] the British statute concerning the House of Lords in Ireland, would turn to their advantage, and be the means of destroying her right. As to the objection, that the decree being inrolled was a bar to the petitioner, it was conceived to be the strongest argument why if that decree was not just, she should having an opportunity of having it rectified; but which, by its being inrolled, could not be done but by appeal. As to another objection, that the petitioner was neither a party, or privy to any of the parties to the original, decree; it was insisted, that though she was not privy in blood or representation, yet she was in estate, as claiming under John Vernon, who was the plaintiff in that suit; and that this was the only material privity and as all persons claiming under parties are bound by decrees which are right, as the parties themselves are; so they ought to have the same liberty of shewing errors in such decrees, in case they are wrong: for otherwise, there must be a failure of justice in all those cases, where the right of a party to a suit comes to another by any other way than that of legal representation; and especially in the present case, where a mortgage had been taken on the credit of a decree of the House of Lords in Ireland, then supposed to be good, and not declared void till near twenty years after, on the ground of a defect in jurisdiction, only, which they exercised many years both before and after the decree. That though the petitioner could not in such appeal make the heirs at law of John Vernon to be joint appellants with her, against their will; yet she could make them and all other parties respondents to it, so as by the appeal to bring all matters properly in question. As to another objection which had been made, that the suit was abated, and therefore there could be no appeal till it was revived; it was apprehended to be wholly unnecessary, even where a legal representative appeals, who is not bound to revive a decree for the mere purpose of appealing from it; but in the present case, Mrs. Vernon being no representative, could not revive; nor was it ever heard, that an original bill, in the nature of a bill of revivor, was brought to revive a suit below which had been dismissed. And as to a fourth objection, that this would be giving an original jurisdiction to their Lordships, since the petitioner's mortgage was not in issue in the suit below; it was apprehended, that this circumstance had no relation to the merits of the decree appealed from; and that their Lordships would be no more under any difficulty as to the judging of that mortgage, which was only to derive her title to bring the decree into question, than to judge of the heirship of George Venables Vernon, if he had brought the appeal, and his pedigree was disputed.

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