Page:Borden v. State ex rel. Robinson.pdf/30

548 of that discretion within the power and authority conferred. The only question which can arise between an individual claiming a right under the act done and the public or any person denying its validity, are, power in the officer and fraud in the party. All other questions are settled by the decision made or the act done by the tribunal or officer; whether executive (1 Cr. 170, 171,) legislative (4 Wheat. 423, 2 Peters 412, 4 Peters 563,) judicial (11 Mass. 227, 11 Serg. & Rawle 429, adopted in 2 Peters 167, 168,) or special (20 J. R. 739, 740, 2 Dow. Par. Cases 521,) unless an appeal is provided for, or other revision by some appellate or supervisory tribunal is prescribed by law."

We are fully aware that there are highly respectable authorities, besides some of the previous decisions of this court, which are directly against the conclusion to which we have arrived on the main question; but, with due deference, we think all such have lost sight of the controling distinction between the judicial powers of superior and inferior courts of special and limited jurisdiction and the consequent paramount doctrine that the judgment of a superior court can never be a nullity to be entirely disregarded. The English cases usually relied upon certainly afford no just grounds for conclusions opposite to ours, for those cases, like the old case of Buchannon vs. Rucker, (1 Camp. R. 63) and the most recent of Farguson vs. Mahon, (3 Per. & Dav. R. 143) having arisen upon actions of assumpsit upon foreign judgments, their true doctrine is simply that, to raise an assumpsit in law, the party assuming must either directly or indirectly be personally connected with the matter out of which the assumpsit is to be raised, all foreign judgments being there regarded as but prima facia evidence of debt or duty. And as to American authorities, some of these have been essentially modified; as the earlier by the later decisions in New York. (Foot & Beebe vs. Stevens, 17 Wend. 483. Hart vs. Leixas, 21 ib. 40); or strongly countervailed by the decisions of other tribunals of higher authority, as the case of ''Wm. M. Gwin et al. vs. McCarron, (1 Smedes & Marsh. 351) by the case of Grignen's Lessee vs. Aston et al. (2 How. U. S. R.'' 319); or are equivocal and evasive. (See Mr. Justice