Simon v. Southern Railway Company

diversity of citizenship and charges that Simon was seeking to enforce by levy a judgment obtained by fraud and without notice to the Railway Company. If that be so the United States courts, by virtue of their general equity powers, had jurisdiction to enjoin the plaintiff from enforcing a judgment thus doubly void. For even where there has been process and service, if the court "finds that the parties have been guilty of fraud in obtaining a judgment . . . it will deprive them of the benefit of it." McDaniel v. Traylor, 196 U.S. 415, 423. Much more so will equity enjoin parties from enforcing those obtained without service. For in such a case the person named as defendant "can no more be regarded as a party than any other member of the community." Such judgments are not erroneous and not voidable but upon principles of natural justice, and under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, are absolutely void. They constitute no justification to a plaintiff who if concerned in executing such judgments is considered in law as a mere trespasser. Harris v. Hardeman, 14 How. 339 (default judgment entered on improper service). Williamson v. Berry, 8 How. 541; Scott v. McNeal, 154 U.S. 46; Western Indemnity Co. v. Rupp, 235 U.S. 273.