Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/388

 380 FEDERAL REPORTER �daim that they have the same precise defence which has beea Sustained as to other defendants ; that is, that before the sale they withdrew the sheriff's authority to sell on their account, and that they have lost the opportunity to make this defence solely through this mistake of their attorney. Moanwhile, the others, defendants, who were charged by the decree, have appealed to the circuit court, and the marshal has taken proceedings to enforce the entire decree against these de- fendants. �The case is clearly one in which the court would gladly give these parties relief if it had the power. They are appar- ently in the position of being called on to pay what other defendants, upon the same state of faets, have been held not liable to pay, and if the appeal of the defendants who have been charged should be sustained, they are also charged with what will in that case be held to have been a claim not well founded against any of the defendants. But it is clear that,. after the term at which a final judgment or decree is entered, the courts of the United States have no power to open the judgment or decree and grant a rehearing, or let a defendant in to answer, unless at the time at which the judgment or decree is entered some order is made virtually keeping the judgment open for further relief or proceedings. Supr. Ct. Eules m Eq. 18 and 19; Mueller v. Ehlers, 1 Otto, 249; Scott T. Blaine, 1 Bald. 287; Herbert v. Butler, 14 Bl. C. C. 367. �The rule is based on the theory that public and private interests require that there should be an end of litigation after a party has had his day in court, and ample opportu- nity to present and assert his rights by way of prosecution or defence. And in the courts of the United States this limit of litigation, subject to the right of appeal or review, is fixed at the end of the term of the court at which the final judgment is entered. �In this case these defendants had ample opportunity to present their defence, and it must be accounted their own negligence and laches that they did not do so. At any rate, the court is without power to relieve them on motion. �The onlv suggestion of irregularitv in the proceedings in ��� �