IN THE SENATE ON THE INVESTIGATION OF THE CHARGES PREFERRED AGAINST HORACE G. PRINDLE, COUNTY JUDGE AND SURROGATE OF CHENANGO COUNTY. IN PURSUANCE OF A MESSAGE FROM HIS EXCELLENCY THE VOLUME II. ALBANY: WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 1874. and allowing such an account is conclusive upon the county." It also decides that it is a judicial act; the taxing of this bill by the proper officer is a judicial act, and that that is conclusive until it is repudiated in a proper way; but it also decides the other question, I maintain, and if you read the opinion of Judge Bronson, you will find that the action of a board of supervisors in a matter over which they have jurisdiction is conclusive. Mr. D. P. WOOD-What is the title of that case? Mr. GLOVER "Supervisors of Onondaga v. Briggs." Judge Bronson goes further in this opinion, and I wish to read a few sentences here in support of the proposition that Judge Prindle had a right to charge for his services in drawing these papers? it not being official business, truly speaking. Judge Bronson said upon this question in regard to the board of supervisors: "A good deal had been said to prove that the taxation of a bill of costs is not a technical judgment. The labor was unnecessary; for no such thing had been pretended. But still it is a judicial act. It is a duty which has been confided to judicial officers to be exercised in a judicial way. The parties and their proofs are to be heard; and their rights are to be settled by a judicial determination. It is of the same general nature as are the decisions made by a judge, or commissioner in proceedings under the insolvent laws, and act to punish fraudulent debtors, between landlord and tenant, and the many other cases which might be enumerated. They are all judicial determinations, which are conclusive upon the parties until they have been reversed, vacated, or set aside in the forms prescribed by law: They cannot be attacked in a collateral action, save where the Legislature has so expressly provided. This is a principle of universal application. It extends alike to the decisions of the highest court, and the humblest officer in the State who has been intrusted with the exercise of judicial powers. However desirable it may seem in a particular case to disregard the rule, it cannot be broken. down without doing a great wrong to the community. When a matter of right between A and B has been settled in the form prescribed by law, whatever that form may be, if the determination be not conclusive so long as it remains in force, if either party may at his pleasure disregard it and litigate the matter over again in a collateral action, we shall have nothing but endless legal strife and controversy. No community could longer endure such a state of things as this new doctrine would be likely to bring about. I do not understand that more than one member of the Court of Errors has expressed an opinion in favor of it; and I do not doubt |