## Facts

- Ernest Meres, as receiver of the Sponge Exchange Bank of Tarpon Springs, sued Frank E. Malone in a Florida circuit court sitting in chancery (equity) over a written contract involving the sale of specified personal property (furniture, fixtures, and equipment used in operating the Tarpon Inn).
- The contract was an executory installment sale: Malone received possession, the seller retained title until payment, and the agreement contained default provisions giving the seller election-type remedies.
- After Malone allegedly defaulted, Meres filed a bill in equity seeking to enforce a lien against the personal property based on the contract, and to obtain foreclosure and sale.
- Malone appeared in the chancery action and filed an answer on the merits demanding proof of breach, but he did not timely object that the chancery court lacked jurisdiction or that Meres had an adequate remedy at law.
- The chancery court entered a final decree granting relief for Meres, ordered foreclosure and sale of the personal property, and later confirmed the sale; the court also entered a deficiency decree for any unpaid balance.
- After those decrees, Malone moved in the same cause to vacate the foreclosure and confirmation decrees as void, arguing (1) the chancery court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction and (2) equity should not have acted because an adequate legal remedy existed.
- The chancery court denied the motion to vacate, and Malone appealed from that denial.

## Issues

1. Whether the chancery court’s foreclosure and sale decrees enforcing an asserted lien on personal property were void for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
2. Whether the claimed availability of an adequate remedy at law deprived the chancery court of jurisdiction (so that its decrees were void) or instead presented only a waivable objection to proceeding in equity.
3. Whether a defendant who appeared and litigated on the merits without timely raising the “adequate remedy at law” objection could later attack the final decrees as void by a motion to vacate.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the order denying Malone’s motion to vacate.
- The circuit court sitting in equity had jurisdiction over the parties and over the general class of cases presented by the pleadings (a bill seeking enforcement and foreclosure of an asserted lien interest).
- Even if equity should not have proceeded because a legal remedy was available, that would be an error in the exercise of jurisdiction, not a true absence of jurisdiction; such error would make the decree only voidable on direct review, not void.
- Because Malone appeared and answered without seasonably challenging equity’s power to proceed, he could not later treat the decrees as void on that ground.

## Legal Principles

- A judgment is “void” only when the court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter or the parties; mistakes made while acting within jurisdiction render the judgment merely voidable.
- For courts of general equity jurisdiction, the existence of an adequate remedy at law usually concerns whether equity should grant relief, not whether it has power to hear the cause; the objection can be waived if not timely raised.
- When a contract concerning delivered personal property shows an intent to secure payment of a debt (even though the seller retains title), equity may treat the arrangement as creating a lien or mortgage-like security interest enforceable by foreclosure.
- Post-judgment relief based on “voidness” is not available where the alleged defect is that the court granted an equitable remedy that was arguably improper; the proper method is direct appeal from the decree, not a later collateral-style attack by motion to vacate.

## Conclusion

Malone v. Meres holds that a chancery decree foreclosing and selling personal property to enforce a contract-based lien was not void where the court had jurisdiction over the parties and the general subject matter; objections that the plaintiff had an adequate remedy at law went only to whether equity should have acted, could be waived by litigating without timely objection, and would render the decree at most voidable rather than void.


Malone v. Meres, 109 So. 677 (1926)