Parties cannot confer jurisdiction upon a court by consent, but if the court has jurisdiction of the parties and the subject-matter, errors, mistakes or defects, which are merely formal or "circumstantial" within the meaning of § 5659 of the General Statutes, may be waived by stipulation or by failure to object at the proper time. The defendant was arrested and summoned before the City Court of Hartford to answer to a bastardy complaint which was formally addressed to B, a justice of the peace, but in fact presented and sworn to by the plaintiff before N, a commissioner of the Superior Court, who likewise issued the warrant under which the defendant was taken into custody. The defendant made no objection in the City Court to this irregularity, but signed a stipulation by which he waived examination and consented to be bound over to the Court of Common Pleas where, by a motion to erase the cause from the docket, he raised for the first time the question of N's authority to act under the complaint. The trial court granted the motion. Held that the trial court erred.
CURTIS, J.
Assuming that, under the facts, there was an irregularity in the procedure followed, which would justify the dismissal of the proceedings on motion, if made in due season, then we have a case where the defendant was brought into the City Court in an informal way, and in that court made no objection to the informality, but, on the contrary, agreed to the jurisdiction of that court, by stipulation, and was duly bound over to the Court of Common Pleas and therein appeared.
By his stipulation and conduct the defendant has waived any right he may have had to question the jurisdiction of the Court of Common Pleas to proceed with the case. The City Court and the Court of Common Pleas had jurisdiction over the parties and the subject-matter. The stipulation was not an attempt by parties to give jurisdiction to a court, which had no jurisdiction over either the subject-matter or the parties. The claimed defect was a formal defect, and not a defect of a matter of substance. Such a defect may be waived by failure to object to it at the proper time.
"The general rule is that an objection to a pleading may be waived by failure to urge the objection at a proper time. . . . A failure to make a motion is generally deemed a waiver of defects or objections for which the motion lies." 31 Cyc. 717, 718.
The statute as to "circumstantial errors, mistakes or defects" is applicable. General Statutes, § 5659. See also Norton v. Shore Line Electric Ry. Co., 84 Conn. 24, 78 A. 587; Woodruff v. Bacon, 34 Conn. 181; Spencer's Appeal, 78 Conn. 301, 303, 61 A. 1010; Smith v. State, 19 Conn. 493; Davis v. McEnaney, 150 Mass. 451, 23 N.E. 221; Wheeler v. New York, N. H. H.R. Co., 70 Conn. 326, 39 A. 443; Coyne v. Plume, 90 Conn. 293, 97 A. 337.