Case ID: scl_21/html/0004-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "O’Neaee, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JEREMIAH BROWN VS. TIMOTHY COWARD.
    Where the Clerk has made no entry on the minutes of the Court, of § judgement ¡D sum. pro., there is nothing on which a scire facias to revive can issue: Nor will a motion to amend by entering up judgment nunc pro tunc be granted, for the reason that there is no judgment to amend. It may be, that on a rule to shew cause, leave may be granted to enter up judgment nunc pro tunc.
    
    
      Before Buteer, . J. at Marion, Fall Term, 1835.
    The presiding Judge made the following report:
    “ This was a sei.fa. to revive a judgment recovered on a sum. pro. Pleas, •ml tiel record, and payment. The question involved in this case, is of some importance to the suitors and people of Marion. The Clerk of Marion has not, until within the last year, entered on the minutes of the court any specific sum, for which judgment was recovered in the sum. pro. jurisdiction ; and as there is no regular judgment entered up by the attorney in such cases, of consequence there is no judgment to authorize an execution. The entry of the clerk is a transcript from the docket, and in the words of the Judge who ordered the judgment. This, according to the case of McCall vs. Boatwright, 2 Hill, 439, is no judgment. Many titles íq lands and other rights depend on a judgment in sum. pro., and might be defeated for the want of such judgment. In the case under consideration, the original writ in sum. pro., the entry by the Judge, decree by default, and the execution, were produced, but no judgment; it was objected to the revival of the execution, that there was no judgment to authorize its being originally issued. I suggested that as there were many cases in the same situation, that the counsel for the plaintiff should make a motion to amend, so that a judgment might be entered up, as it should have been at the time it was ordered. I sustained the motion thus made. •Where judicial proceedings are imperfect, the court to which they belong will amend thepi, as long as there is any thing to amend by. In this case there is enough to amend b)'. There is the original process, the writ upon which it was issued, and the Judge’s order, authorizing the clerk to enter up judgment. Upon these data, judgment can be as well entered up now, as it ever could,”
    The defendant appealed from the order of the presiding Judge.
   Curia, per

O’Neaee, J.

According to the case of McCall vs. Boatwright, 2 Hill, 439, and Evans vs. Hinds, just decided, there was no judgment in this case, on which the scire facias could issue. The plea of nul tiel record was therefore unanswerable, and constituted a bar to the plaintiff'’s recovery, which could not be removed.

The motion to amend ought not to have been granted, for the obvious reason that there was no judgment to amend.-:

If the record’does furnish certain evidence of what the judgment should be, it may be, that after a rule to shew cause has been served upon the defendant, leave may be granted to the plaintiff to enter up a judgment nunc pro tunc. But if this should be done, it cannot avail the plaintiff in pcire facias. For at the sueing out of the writ, there was no judgment; and being issued without any legal cause to support it, it must fail.

The motion to reverse the order to amend, and for a non-suit, is granted,

Johnson and Harper, JJ. concurred.