Case ID: va_22/html/0180-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "JUDGE BROOKE,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Green v. Skipwith.
    May, 1823.
    Office Judgment — When It May Be Set Aside.' — It is error in acourtof lawto enter a judgment against a defendant, on the day after a conditional judgment has been confirmed at the rules. The defendant has until the next term after the conditional judgment is confirmed in the office, to set it aside, under the act of assembly.
    This was an action of debt, brought by Skipwith against Green, in the superior court of Mecklenburg. A conditional judgment was entered against Green and his appearance bail, which was confirmed on the 7th April, at the rules. On the 8th day of April following, judgment was rendered by the court, the defendant “still failing to answer the plaintiff’s action.”
    Green obtained a supersedeas from a judge of the court of appeals.
    
      
      Office Judgment — When It Can Be Placed on the
      Docket. — In Hale v. Chamberlain, 13 Gratt. 660, it is said: “The provision as to making out the docket is substantially the same as that contained in the 1 Rev. Code 1819, p. 507, § 76, varied so far as was necessary to provide for motions. The law then as now provided that the docket was to be made out before the term, and it followed that no cause could be put on the docket in which there was an office judgment, unless such office judgment had been obtained before the term: and where the office judgment was obtained on the same day the term commenced, the canse could not be put upon the docket at that term. White v. Archer, 2 Va. Cas. 201; Green v. Skipwith, 1 Rand. 460.”
      See principal case alsocited in Dillard v. Thornton, 29 Gratt. 398. Por further information on this subject see monographic note on “Judgments” appended to Smith v Charlton. 7 Gratt. 425.
    
   JUDGE BROOKE,

May 19. — delivered the opinion of the court:

The court is of opinion, that it was error in the superior court to enter a judgment against the defendant, on the day after the conditional judgment had been confirmed at rules; the defendant having until the next term after the conditional judgment is confirmed in the office, tc set it aside, under the act of assembly.

The judgment is, therefore, reversed, and the cause remanded, with liberty to the appellant to plead and set the office judgment aside, on the usual terms, or to be final, in case of his failure to set it aside.