Broder

— A trial of the issues herein was had in Inyo County before Hon. J. F. Rooney, judge of the superior court of Tuolumne County, who had been directed by the governor to try the cause on account of the disqualification of the superior judge of Inyo County, and on the 26th of September, 1890, the judge filed his findings of fact and conclusions of law, in which he found “ that the plaintiffs herein are entitled to judgment,” and added as a closing direction, “counsel will prepare an interlocutory judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, directing a reference to a commissioner to be appointed by the court to take an account between the parties.”

Between the hours of six and seven o’clock in the afternoon of January 5, 1891, the clerk received through the mail a document, signed by Judge Rooney, which purported to he a formal judgment in the case, and which the clerk afterwards entered in the judgment-book of Inyo County. Judge Rooney’s term of office expired on the first Monday of January, 1891, and the newly elected judge of Inyo County had assumed his office on the morning of that day. On the 9th of February, 1891, the defendants Conklin gave notice to the plaintiffs that, on the…