PILAR MATHELIER, Appellant-Petitioner, v. LUC MATHELIER,

Appellee-Respondent. PETITION FOR REARGUMENT. Argued March 24, 1966. Decided July 1, 1966. Judgment rendered against a party whose counsel absented himself from the hearing of which he was duly notified is justified on the basis of abandonment of the cause. Petition for reargument of appeal denied. Joseph W. Garber for appellant. Richard A. Diggs for appellee. MR. JUSTICE the Court. WARDSWORTH delivered the opinion of The above-entitled cause of action was heard and determined by this Court during its March 1965 term (see [1965] LRSC 29; 17 L.L.R. 45), but because petitioner believes and/or contends that certain legal issues raised in her bill of exceptions and her brief, submitted and argued during the above-mentioned term of this Court, were inadvertently overlooked in determining said cause, she, in consequence thereof, filed a four-count petition for reargument; hence this matter is before us for the second time for adjudication. Since we deem Counts 1 and 2 worthy of consideration, we hereunder quote them as follows : “1. That is evident from the opinion of this Honorable Court in this case that it inadvertently overlooked the following legal point raised by petitioner in her bill of exceptions and her brief : whether, because of the absence of petitioner and her counsel when the divorce case was called for hearing in the court below, the trial judge was legally authorized to preclude petitioner from participating in this case in 472 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 473 which pleadings had proceeded to the rejoinder and which had been previously hotly contested in the first trial, by granting a judgment by default, that is, by having an imperfect judgment recorded in favor of plaintiff and having only the complaint (not even the answer which had also ruled to trial) read to the jury. 2. That your petitioner respectfully submits. that, in her opinion, this legal point is material and its consideration vital to the determination of the case because an imperfect judgment, under our statutes, is one which shows which party is entitled to succeed in the action; and its entry in the record before hearing of the case in favor of the plaintiff meant that plaintiff was entitled to succeed in the action and that even though the trial judge also caused a plea of not guilty to be entered in favor of the defendant, he rendered this plea of no effect by making record that ‘plaintiff (alone) is required to substantiate the charge alleged in the complaint’ and by ordering the clerk to read to the jury the complaint alone as if defendant had not pleaded at all, thus making clear that the court’s entry of not guilty had no legal effect whatsoever.” It would seem that petitioner is confusing judgment by default with abandonment, upon which the trial judge predicated his judgment in said divorce case. This Court, in passing upon the issues raised in petitioner’s bill of exceptions and brief, did amply explore the issues embodied in her petition for reargument. There is a marked difference between judgment by default and abandonment. We shall later come to this. This Court in its opinion delivered in the instant case did, in passing on Count 2 of appellant’s bill of exceptions, consider the grounds as laid in the motion or petition for reargument. We shall here again for the second time, for the benefit of this opinion, quote appellant’s said Count 2 of her bill of exceptions in which she contended: ” 474 “2. LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS That, because neither defendant-appellant nor her counsel was present at court during the hearing of the case, defendant-appellant filed a motion with Your Honor to declare as a legal nullity the proceedings which had then taken place in the case during her and her counsel’s absence, to set aside the resulting verdict that had been brought against her and award her a new trial on the ground that defendant-appellant had been deprived of the opportunity to present her side of the case during the trial and therefore her day in court, but Your Honor denied defendant-appellant’s said motion and sustained plaintiff-appellee’s resistance thereto, to which ruling defendant-appellant, considering the same prejudicial to her interests, then and there excepted. See court record dated October 23, 1963 (25th day’s session), as well as copy of defendant-appellant’s motion dated October 26, 1964, copy of plaintiff-appellee’s resistance thereto, and copy of court’s record dated November 3, 1964 (3 1st day’s session) pages 3 to 5.” In overruling this count of petitioner’s bill of exceptions the Court, in its opinion delivered at its March 1965 term, meticulously considered and traversed all of the grounds embodied in petitioner’s petition. The Court pointed out in no uncertain terms that the petitionerappellant’s counsel, although having actual knowledge of the assignment of the case for hearing, neglected to remain in court without any explanation to the trial judge, which occasioned the trial judge to predicate his judgment on petitioner-appellant’s abandonment of her cause. Further commenting on this count of petitioner’s bill of exceptions, the Court inter alia made clear, that: “It is our opinion that any lawyer whose determination, in the trial of a cause is apparent to subordinate the court to his will and thereby employs legal delay tactics to divert the normal course of the administration of justice, directly or indirectly, may not be per- LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 475 mitted to enjoy any legal benefits which, otherwise, might have accrued therefrom, even though irregularities may be manifest on the fact of the record.” It should be remembered that the legal term “abandon” is defined as follows: “To relinquish; forsake; give up. The word includes the intention and the external act by which it is carried into effect.” BOUVIER’S LAW DICTIONARY (Rawle’s 3rd Rev. 1914) Abandon. It is to be observed that there is a marked difference between the instant case and the case cited and relied on by petitioner in support of her petition for reargument. The judgment in the instant case is based on abandonment whilst in the case cited by petitioner, Geeby v. Geeby, [1954] LRSC 15; 12 L.L.R. 20 (1954), the judgment was based primarily on the failure of the judge to notify the appellant of the assignment of the case for hearing as well as the rejection of her legal counsel’s application to represent her in said cause. It was obvious that the act of the trial judge in that case was in derogation of the organic law in such cases made and provided. But in the present case, neither was petitioner’s counsel rejected nor was notice of assignment lacking. Therefore the two cases cannot legally be considered in the same light or placed in the same category. In view of the foregoing, it is our considered opinion that the petitioner’s petition is unmeritorious and that all the grounds laid in her petition were explored and settled in the opinion herein referred to; therefore, the said petition is hereby denied with costs against petitioner. And it is hereby so ordered. Petition denied.