Opinion of the Court-Beatty, J.

The appeal is from the judgment, and but one question arises upon the record: Did the court err in sustaining the motion of plaintiffs for judgment on the pleadings?

The suit is to foreclose a mechanic's lien and was commenced in a justice's court. It is not pretended that the complaint does not state a case for the relief decreed. It alleges inter alia that the work was done and the materials. furnished at the special instance and request of one J. J. Bennett, the agent of the defendant. No allegation of the complaint is denied in the answer, the defendant relying solely on the following plea: "Plaintiffs ought not to be allowed to maintain this action for that on the day of May, 1875, they obtained a judgment for the same debt. against J. J. Bennett in this court." The defendant had judgment in the justice's court, but on appeal to the district court the plaintiffs recovered a judgment on the pleadings, from which the defendant appeals; and the sole question for our decision is whether the plea, admitting it to be true, avoids the original liability which the defendant has admitted by failing to deny the allegations of the complaint? We think it does not. The fact that plaintiffs have recovered a judgment against Bennett only proves that Bennett made himself also personally liable on the contract which he entered into on behalf of his principal, which he may have done by failing to disclose his agency or by the form of the contract. In such case Corbett is also liable, and an unsatisfied judgment against Bennett is no bar to an action against Corbett. Especially is this so when the object of this proceeding is not to obtain a personal judgment against Corbett, but to enforce the lien upon his property. He does not deny that his property was subject to the lien, but plants himself upon the bald proposition that the lien is extinguished by an unsatisfied judgment against his agent. We have been cited to no authority, and we know of none which supports such a view. Appellant suggests in his argument that Bennett was not his agent, but his tenant, and had no authority to bind him or his estate. If this is true, it should have been so stated in the answer. As the record

Argument for Appellant.

stands, Bennett's agency is admitted, and we can look to nothing else.

It is said to have been an error in the district court to make the decree without any testimony as to the part of the premises subject to the lien. But as to this matter, we think the complaint was sufficiently specific, and the decree follows it.

Judgment affirmed.

[No. 792.]

DUNCAN L. THOMAS, APPELLANT, v. J. D. SULLIVAN ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

STATEMENT ON MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL CANNOT BE CERTIFIED TO AFTER APPEAL IS TAKEN.-Where the court below allowed and settled a statement after action upon the motion for new trial and after an appeal was taken: Held, that the court had lost jurisdiction by the appeal and that the statement on motion for new trial must be disregarded. IDEM-EFFECT OF ORDER PREMATURELY MADE.-The effect of the reversal of an order granting a motion for a new trial, when the reversal results from the fact that the decision was prematurely made, is to leave the motion still pending in the court below to be regularly and properly disposed of.

APPEAL from the District Court of the Sixth Judicial District, Eureka County,

The facts are stated in the opinion.

D. E. Bailey, for Appellant.

I. The court erred in granting defendant's motion for a a new trial, when there was no certificate attached to the statement on motion for new trial, as required by law. Under the practice act and the decisions of the supreme courts both of this state and California, there was no motion or statement for a new trial on which the judge of the court below acted, when the order was made.. (Comp. L., vol. 1, sec. 1258; White v. White, 6 Nev. 20; Dean v. Pritchard, 9 Id. 332; Morris v. De Celis, 41 Cal. 331; Waggenheim v. Hook, 35 Id. 216; Cosgrove v. Johnson, 30 Id. 509.)

II. If the statement was properly authenticated as required

Argument for Appellant in reply.

by law, there is nothing in the evidence adduced upon the trial which would warrant the judge in the court below granting the order on motion for a new trial. The new trial was granted by the court below on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict, and upon that alone.

Hillhouse & Davenport, for Respondent.

I. We concede that there are some authorities in this state which authorize the appellate court to refuse to examine a statement on motion for new trial that is not properly certified to before an appeal is taken, and without asking that these decisions be reversed, we think we can suggest a remedy by which the evil results of such a course of decisions can be avoided. We submit here with the affidavit of the district judge who granted the new trial herein. On that, we ask that what purports to be a statement on motion for new trial be considered on this appeal, as it was upon motion for new trial; or if, under the decisions, this court should think this would, to some extent, unsettle the practice, then let an order be made reversing the order granting a new trial and remanding the matter, with instructions to re-submit the motion to the judge who decided the motion, with leave to him to certify to the statement and decide the motion.

In all the cases where these technical objections have prevailed, we find no affidavit, and nowhere is there any request to remand the case, with instructions to re-submit motion. We refer the court to sec. 1131, Comp. L. of Nevada, and to the case of Flynn v. Cottle (47 Cal. 526).

D. E. Bailey, in reply.

I. The respondents, in their brief, virtually admit that the points made by appellant are correct, and seriously ask that the case be re-submitted to Judge McKenney. There is nothing in the statute to warrant such practice, and the case cited by counsel of Flynn v. Cottle (47 Cal. 527), does not even suggest any such proceeding. This method, however, was suggested to this court by counsel for appellants in the

Opinion of the Court-Beatty, J.

case of Dean v. Pritchard, but was answered by the court citing the case of Caples v. Central P. R. R. Co. (6 Nev. 271-2.)

All the authorities hold-and there is no conflict-that when a motion for a new trial is granted on a defective statement, it is the same as if no statement had been filed, and there is no foundation for such an order.

By the Court, BEATTY, J.:

In this case the plaintiff appeals from an order granting a new trial; the principal ground of the appeal being that the court erred in granting the motion "when there was no certificate attached to the statement on motion for new trial as required by law." It appears from the record that the motion was granted September 13, 1875; that this appeal was taken and perfected on the eighteenth of October following, and that on the next day, October 19, 1875, the district judge attached the following certificate to the "engrossed statement" on motion for new trial:

"The foregoing statement is correct, and has been allowed by me. I make this certificate of the date of September 13, 1875, on motion of counsel for defendants. This statement was settled by me and is correct. I further certify that this statement was settled in Eureka county, Nevada, before me with both parties present, and that the motion for new trial was submitted to me on this statement by consent of attorneys for the respective parties. Dated October 19, 1875. D. C. McKenney, D. J."

This certificate having been made after the district court had lost jurisdiction of the case for that purpose, we are compelled to wholly disregard the statement to which it is affixed, and as there is nothing to support the order granting a new trial, it must be reversed. The cases of Lamburth v. Dalton and Dean v. Prichard, are precisely in point. (9 Nev. 66 and 232.)

But counsel for respondents, upon a suggestion of the circumstances under which their motion was decided, ask that, in case the order is reversed, the cause be remanded, with directions to the district judge to make a proper certi

Opinion of the Court-Beatty, J.

ficate to the statement, and then to decide the motion for a new trial.

The circumstances so suggested are set forth in an affidavit of the district judge filed in this court, from which it appears that at the time this case was tried, Judge McKenney was judge of the sixth district, embracing Eureka county; that the case was tried at Eureka, and the statement on motion for new trial settled by him and ordered engrossed, that shortly after the settlement of the statement, and before its engrossment, he ceased to be judge of the sixth district and became judge of the fifth district, which does not embrace Eureka county; that subsequently the engrossed statement and the motion for new trial were submitted to him at Austin; that his decision of the motion, together with the engrossed statement, was returned to Eureka, he having failed, through inadvertence, to affix his certificate to the statement, and that he afterwards made the certificate of October 19, above quoted.

These suggestions, and the application of respondents founded thereon, present a question which has never been considered by this court; that is, what is the effect of the reversal of an order granting a motion for a new trial when the reversal results solely from the fact that the decision of the motion was prematurely made? Does it forever destroy the right of the moving party to proceed with his motion? Or is its effect limited to the order irregularly and prematurely entered, leaving the motion still pending in the court below, to be regularly and properly disposed of? The latter view is sustained by the case of Morris v. DeCelis (41 Cal. 331), and is not opposed by any decision of this court. The point was involved, perhaps, in the cases of Lamburth v. Dalton and Dean v. Pritchard, but it was not presented to the court, and of course not passed upon. In this case, however, the respondent presents the point by the facts suggested, and his request that upon a reversal of the order appealed from the case be remanded for further proceedings. We think that if the facts suggested are true, the case should be remanded. They are not precisely those presented by the case of Morris v. DeCelis, but they involve the same principle. It was there decided that when