Case Title: Shriners Hospitals for Children v. Cox

Citation: 

Docket Number: S064390

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 2019-02-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
394	
February 7, 2019	
No. 8
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
STATE OF OREGON
SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN,
a Colorado nonprofit corporation; 
and Oregon Scottish Rite Clinics,
an Oregon nonprofit corporation,
Petitioners on Review,
v.
Michael A. COX, 
as Personal Representative for 
Mack A. Woods, Deceased,
Respondent on Review,
and
BENNETT, HARTMAN, MORRIS & KAPLAN, LLP 
and Tyler Smith & Associates, P.C.,
Respondents on Review.
(CC CV07110578) (CA A155952) (SC S064390)
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted September 13, 2018.
Richard L. Grant, Richard L. Grant, P.C., Portland, 
argued the cause and filed the brief for petitioners on review.
George W. Kelly, Eugene, argued the cause and filed the 
brief for respondent on review Michael A. Cox.
No appearance on behalf of respondents on review 
Bennett, Hartman, Morris & Kaplan, LLP, and Tyler Smith 
& Associates, P.C.
Before Walters, Chief Justice, and Balmer, Nakamoto, 
Flynn, Duncan, and Nelson, Justices, and Kistler, Senior 
Justice pro tempore.**
______________
	
**  On appeal from Clackamas County Circuit Court, Roderick A. Boutin, 
Judge (order) Susie L. Norby, Judge (supplemental judgments) 280 Or App 127, 
380 P3d 999 (2016).
	
**  Garrett, J., did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.
Cite as 364 Or 394 (2019)	
395
KISTLER, S. J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed. The case 
is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
Case Summary: Plaintiffs obtained a default judgment against defendant. 
Defendant subsequently prevailed as a plaintiff in a separate malpractice action, 
in which he used the default judgment to establish damages. Defendant then 
moved to set the default judgment aside, arguing that it was void because of 
improper service. The trial court denied the motion on timeliness grounds. The 
Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the motion was timely and that a party 
could not be estopped from setting aside a void judgment. Held: (1) Judicial estop­
pel can prevent a party from setting a judgment aside on the grounds that the 
judgment is void due to improper service; (2) In this case, where defendant had 
relied on the default judgment to establish damages in another lawsuit, judicial 
estoppel applied.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed. The case is remanded to the 
Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
396	
Shriners Hospitals for Children v. Cox
	
KISTLER, S. J.
	
The primary question in this case is whether defen­
dant is judicially estopped from setting aside a default judg­
ment that, he contends, resulted from improper service.1 The 
trial court found that, even if service were improper, defen­
dant knew about the default judgment shortly after it was 
entered and used it to his benefit in two judicial proceedings. 
The trial court ruled that, in those circumstances, defendant 
waited too long to set it aside. The Court of Appeals reached 
a different conclusion. It reasoned that the default judgment 
was void; as a result, neither the passage of time nor other 
circumstances barred defendant from seeking to set the 
judgment aside. Shriners Hospitals for Children v. Woods, 
280 Or App 127, 380 P3d 999 (2016). We allowed Shriners’ 
petition for review to consider that question. Because we 
conclude that, in the circumstances of this case, defendant 
was judicially estopped from setting the default judgment 
aside, we reverse the Court of Appeals decision and remand 
this case to the Court of Appeals.2
	
Shriners brought this action against defendant to 
collect on a note and obtained a default judgment against 
him. Shriners’ argument that defendant is judicially 
estopped from moving to set aside the default judgment is 
based on Shriners’ claim that defendant used the default 
judgment to his advantage in two other judicial proceed­
ings: a dissolution action between defendant and his wife 
and a malpractice action that defendant brought against one 
of his lawyers in the dissolution proceeding. In setting out 
the facts, we first describe the note that defendant signed 
and the initial phase of the dissolution proceeding. We then 
describe Shriners’ action to collect the note and the default 
judgment, which occurred midway through the dissolution 
proceeding. We turn next to defendant’s use of the default 
	
1  Woods, the defendant in this case, died after the Court of Appeals issued its 
decision. Cox, the personal representative of Woods’ estate, was substituted for 
him on review. Throughout this opinion, we use the term “defendant” to refer to 
Woods. 
	
2  Having concluded that the default judgment was unenforceable, the Court 
of Appeals did not reach either defendant’s second assignment of error or his for­
mer attorneys’ cross-assignments of error regarding various lien issues. Shriners 
Hospital for Children, 280 Or App at 129. We remand this case to the Court of 
Appeals so that it can consider those issues.
Cite as 364 Or 394 (2019)	
397
judgment in the dissolution proceeding and the later mal­
practice action. Finally, we describe Shriners’ efforts to gar­
nish the proceeds of the malpractice action and defendant’s 
motion to set aside the default judgment.
	
During defendant’s marriage, his wife borrowed 
$137,000 from her aunt and used the money to improve prop­
erty that she and defendant had purchased. On December 7, 
2001, defendant signed a note to repay the loan, which was 
unsecured.3 In 2002, defendant and his wife filed an action to 
dissolve their marriage. That action resulted in a dissolution 
judgment in 2004, a successful appeal by defendant, and a 
remand for a new trial in 2006. Woods and Woods, 207 Or 
App 452, 142 P3d 1072 (2006). After the trial court entered 
the 2004 dissolution judgment but before the Court of Appeals 
remanded the case for a new trial, defendant’s wife sold the 
marital home.4 She spent the money that she received from 
the sale and did not use it to repay the loan to her aunt. Woods 
v. Hill, 248 Or App 514, 518, 273 P3d 354 (2012).
	
By November 2007, the dissolution proceeding had 
been remanded for a new trial, defendant had discharged 
the first attorney (Hill) who had represented him in the 
dissolution proceeding, and he had hired a new attorney 
(Renshaw) to represent him in the dissolution proceeding on 
remand. Also, by November 2007, defendant’s note had been 
assigned to Shriners, the note was approximately five years 
overdue, and Shriners filed this action to collect the princi­
pal and interest due under the note. Shriners filed an affi­
davit of service in the collection action. In the affidavit, the 
process server stated under penalty of perjury that he had 
personally served a copy of the summons and complaint on 
defendant on November 28, 2007. Defendant did not appear 
in the collection action, and the trial court entered a default 
judgment against defendant on January 3, 2008. The default 
judgment established the amount that defendant owed on 
the note and the rate of interest and awarded Shriners 
court costs and attorney fees. Additionally, interest began 
	
3  The note recited that the principal and interest would be paid on or before 
December 7, 2002.
	
4  The 2004 dissolution judgment had given the marital home solely to defen­
dant’s wife and had required her to repay the loan to her aunt.
398	
Shriners Hospitals for Children v. Cox
accruing on the attorney fees and court costs at a higher 
rate than on the amount owed under the note.
	
On January 3, 2008, the day that the default 
judgment was entered, defendant’s attorney (Renshaw) 
called Shriners’ attorney (Grant), who was not able to take 
Renshaw’s call. Grant returned Renshaw’s call on Monday, 
January 7, 2008, but was not able to reach him. Later that 
day, Grant received a voice mail message personally from 
defendant.5 On January 10, 2008, a week after the default 
judgment was entered, Grant mailed a demand for pay­
ment of the judgment with interrogatories to defendant, 
return receipt requested, and copied Renshaw with those 
documents. On January 11, defendant personally signed the 
return receipt showing that he had received the demand to 
pay the judgment and the interrogatories.
	
On January 14, 2008, Grant and Renshaw dis­
cussed “the payment of the judgment as well as the inability 
of the defendant Mack Woods to set aside the Default Order 
and Judgment for lack of a meritorious defense.” Later that 
month, Renshaw asked Grant to postpone enforcing the 
judgment until the remand hearing on the dissolution pro­
ceeding had concluded.
	
At the conclusion of the remand hearing, the trial 
court entered a supplemental judgment in the dissolution 
proceeding. The supplemental judgment divided the proceeds 
of the sale of the marital property equally between defen­
dant and his wife. The supplemental judgment also treated 
the debt represented by defendant’s note and reduced to a 
judgment in Shriners’ collection action as a marital debt. 
Specifically, the supplemental judgment divided the debt, 
“all accrued pre- and post-judgment interest and the award 
of attorney fees and costs in the money award” equally 
between defendant and his wife. The supplemental judg­
ment provided that each party’s obligation under the default 
judgment would be reduced by the proceeds from the sale of 
another parcel of land that they owned.
	
Defendant was unhappy with the first attorney 
(Hill) who had represented him in the dissolution proceeding. 
	
5  The record does not disclose the contents of defendant’s voice mail.
Cite as 364 Or 394 (2019)	
399
Defendant retained a third and later a fourth attorney, who 
pursued a malpractice action against Hill for, among other 
things, failing to file a notice of lis pendens during the dis­
solution proceeding. Defendant took the position in the mal­
practice action that, if Hill had filed a notice of lis pendens, 
defendant’s wife would not have been able to sell the marital 
home without the proceeds of the sale being used to pay off 
defendant’s note to the aunt. See Woods v. Hill, 248 Or App 
at 519.
	
A jury found that Hill had committed malpractice, 
and defendant used the default judgment, plus accrued 
interest, to establish his damages. Specifically, defendant’s 
attorney told the jury that “our calculation on the Shriner’s 
judgment was damages of $221,000—$221,106.97,” and he 
argued that the jury should hold Hill responsible for those 
and other damages.6 The jury agreed. It found that defen­
dant’s damages were $274,000, which were reduced to 
$180,840 as a result of defendant’s comparative negligence.
	
In 2013, Shriners sought to garnish the proceeds 
from the malpractice action to satisfy its default judgment 
against defendant. In response, defendant moved to set aside 
the default judgment under ORCP 71 B(1). In support of his 
motion, defendant submitted a sworn declaration in which 
he stated that he had been out of town on November 28, 
2007, and, as a result, had not been personally served with a 
copy of the summons and complaint on that date. His decla­
ration then stated: “At the time I believed that Mr. Renshaw 
[his attorney in the dissolution proceeding] was handling 
the Shriners’ situation and would take care of the matter for 
me. I did not find out that he had done nothing on the case 
until much later discovering that a default judgment had 
been entered against me.”
	
Given those facts, defendant argued that the default 
judgment was void and unenforceable. Alternatively, he 
	
6  Although the record makes clear that defendant relied on the judgment to 
establish damages in the malpractice action, there is at least some ambiguity 
as to what he calculated the value of the judgment to be for that purpose. We 
use $221,106.97—the lowest figure that defendant’s attorney cited—because the 
important point is that he used the judgment to establish his damages, not the 
precise amount of damages that defendant claimed.
400	
Shriners Hospitals for Children v. Cox
argued that, if the court did not set aside the default judg­
ment, equity required that the judgment be modified to cor­
respond with the dissolution judgment, which had divided 
the obligations established by the default judgment equally 
between defendant and his former wife.
	
In considering defendant’s motion to set aside the 
default judgment, the trial court did not resolve whether 
defendant had, in fact, been personally served with the 
summons and complaint on November 28, 2007. It did find, 
however, that defendant “was personally aware of this case 
in January, 2008.” Specifically, the trial court found:
	
“Defendant Woods’ ORCP 71 B motions do not depend 
on whether he was personally served with the Summons 
and Complaint on November 28, 2007. He was personally 
aware of this case in January, 2008. It was an issue in both 
his divorce case and his malpractice case. Woods’ motion 
now is not reasonably timely.”7
Having denied defendant’s motion to set aside the default 
judgment, the trial court ordered that the proceeds from the 
malpractice action be used to satisfy the default judgment.
	
On defendant’s appeal, the Court of Appeals vacated 
the trial court’s order and remanded the case to the trial 
court for further proceedings. The Court of Appeals rea­
soned that, if defendant had not been personally served, the 
default judgment was “void.” The court noted that, although 
ORCP 71(B)(1) provides that motions to set aside some judg­
ments must be made within a “reasonable time,” “ 
‘there is 
no timeliness requirement for moving to set aside a void 
judgment.’ 
” Shriners Hospital for Children, 280 Or App at 
132 (quoting Estate of Selmar A. Hutchins v. Fargo, 188 Or 
App 462, 468, 72 P3d 638 (2003)). It accordingly rejected 
the trial court’s conclusion that defendant had not moved 
to set aside the default judgment within a reasonable time. 
The Court of Appeals also concluded that judicial estoppel 
did not bar defendant from moving to set aside the judgment 
under ORCP 71. Id. at 133-34. It remanded the case for the 
	
7  Based on the facts set out above, the trial court could have found that defen­
dant knew about the default judgment on January 11, 2008, when he received the 
demand for payment and interrogatories from Shriners’ attorney.
Cite as 364 Or 394 (2019)	
401
trial court to resolve whether defendant had, in fact, been 
personally served on November 28, 2007.
	
On review, Shriners does not argue that defendant 
failed to move to set the default judgment aside within a 
reasonable time, and we do not consider that issue. Rather, 
the primary issue, as the parties frame it, is whether defen­
dant can be judicially estopped from moving to set aside 
a default judgment entered without proper service. As we 
understand defendant’s argument on that issue, it rests on 
the following syllogism. This court has held that a judgment 
entered by a court that lacks subject matter jurisdiction is 
“void” and that a party to the judgment cannot be judicially 
estopped from setting it aside. Defendant notes that a judg­
ment entered as a result of improper service also has been 
described as “void.” It follows, defendant concludes, that a 
party to a judgment entered as a result of improper service 
cannot be judicially estopped from setting aside that judg­
ment either.
	
In our view, defendant places too much signifi­
cance on the generic label “void” without asking whether the 
reasons for attaching that label to a judgment matter. As 
explained below, the reasons for holding a judgment entered 
without subject matter jurisdiction void lead to the conclu­
sion that a party will not be judicially estopped from later 
seeking to set it aside. However, as courts and commenta­
tors have recognized, a different conclusion follows when 
a judgment is void because service was improper. In those 
circumstances, they have recognized that a party may be 
estopped. We first explain why the various reasons that a 
judgment may be labeled as void will affect whether a party 
may be estopped from setting it aside. We then explain why 
we conclude that, in light of the trial court’s factual findings, 
defendant was estopped from setting aside the default judg­
ment in this case.
	
A judgment may be void because the court that 
entered it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Garner v. 
Garner, 182 Or 549, 561-62, 189 P2d 397 (1948). A party 
cannot stipulate or consent to subject matter jurisdiction, 
id., and the Oregon courts accordingly have recognized that 
generally a party cannot be judicially estopped from later 
402	
Shriners Hospitals for Children v. Cox
seeking to set aside a judgment entered without subject 
matter jurisdiction, Carey v. Lincoln Loan Co., 342 Or 530, 
534 n 2, 157 P3d 775 (2007). As the court observed in Carey, 
“[j]udicial estoppel generally does not prevent a party to a 
case from challenging a court’s subject matter jurisdiction, 
even after the party has invoked or consented to jurisdiction 
of the court.” Id.; see also Wink v. Marshall, 237 Or 589, 592, 
392 P2d 768 (1964) (same); Garner, 182 Or at 561-62 (same).
	
This court also has described a judgment entered 
either without personal jurisdiction or as a result of improper 
service as void. However, unlike subject matter jurisdiction, 
the defenses of lack of personal jurisdiction and insufficient 
or improper service will be “waived” if a defendant does not 
assert them in a timely fashion. See ORCP 21 G(1) (provid­
ing that a defendant will waive those defenses if they are not 
raised either in an ORCP 21 motion or in the first respon­
sive pleading); Decker v. Wiman, 288 Or 687, 693, 607 P3d 
1370 (1980) (explaining that the defense of lack of personal 
jurisdiction can be waived by a voluntary appearance or by 
consent).8 That is, a defendant may consent to a court’s adju­
dication of his or her obligations and rights even though the 
court otherwise lacked personal jurisdiction over the defen­
dant or service was improper or insufficient. See id.9
	
For that reason, even though courts have some­
times described a default judgment entered without per­
sonal jurisdiction or proper service as “void,” they have long 
recognized that a party may be estopped from seeking to set 
the judgment aside. Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 66 
comment a (1982). As the Restatement explains:
“A judgment purporting to determine the rights of the 
parties, though lacking effect of its own force because of 
invalidity, can * 
* 
* be adopted as a consensual resolution of 
	
8  ORCP 21 G(1) does not use the term “waive” in a strict sense. As used in 
that rule, the term does not refer to the intentional relinquishment of a known 
right. Rather, it describes the effect of failing to assert the defense (whether 
known or unknown) of lack of personal jurisdiction or insufficient or improper 
service in a timely fashion.
	
9  Personal jurisdiction and service are related but separate concepts. 
Figueroa v. BNSF Railway Co., 361 Or 142, 146, 390 P3d 1019 (2017). The former 
refers to a court’s authority to require a defendant to appear and to respond to 
charges. The latter is the means by which a court exercises that authority over a 
defendant. Id.
Cite as 364 Or 394 (2019)	
403
the parties’ rights. The party who obtained the judgment 
expresses his [or her] assent to the terms by obtaining the 
judgment; the other party expresses adherence by some 
act following the judgment in which the judgment is recog­
nized as determinative.”
Id.
	
Given that rationale, the authors of the Restatement 
distilled the following rule from the cases:
	
“Relief from a default judgment on the ground that the 
judgment is invalid will be denied if
	
“(1)  The party seeking relief, after having had actual 
notice of the judgment, manifested an intention to treat the 
judgment as valid; and
	
“(2)  Granting the relief would impair another person’s 
substantial interest of reliance on the judgment.”
Restatement § 66.10 Sometimes, a party will manifest his or 
her acceptance of a judgment expressly. Id. comment b. More 
commonly, a party will manifest his or her intention to treat 
the judgment as valid either by accepting its benefits or by 
not denying the validity of the judgment when placed in a 
position where he or she would be expected to do so. Id. As 
the comment makes clear, however, “in the absence of such 
circumstances, silence is not a manifestation of assent.” Id.
	
Consistently with the Restatement, courts have held 
that manifesting an intention to treat the judgment as valid, 
coupled with reliance, will bar a party from arguing that the 
judgment is invalid due to improper or insufficient service. 
See, e.g., Price v. Price, 169 NC App 187, 609 SE 2d 450 (2005) 
(party judicially estopped from challenging a prior judgment 
because the service of process was insufficient); MacDougall 
v. Kutina, 798 So 2d 30, 32 (Fla Dist Ct App 2001) (party 
estopped from challenging dissolution judgment on grounds 
of defective service of process when he later stated at another 
hearing that he had no problem with paying rehabilitative 
	
10  The cases following the Restatement generally have involved defective ser­
vice, as this case does. In light of this court’s decisions stating that a party will 
not be judicially estopped from moving to set aside a judgment for lack of subject 
matter jurisdiction, we limit our holding to the issue this case presents: whether 
a party can be judicially estopped from setting aside a judgment that is invalid 
because of defective service. 
404	
Shriners Hospitals for Children v. Cox
alimony); City of Newark v. (497) Block 1854, 244 NJ Super 
402, 409-12, 582 A2d 1006 (NJ Super Ct App Div 1990) 
(An owner who did not receive notice of a suit foreclosing 
its equity of redemption was estopped from challenging the 
validity of the resulting judgment; the owner’s “abstention 
from any challenge [to the judgment after learning of it] and 
his successful but aborted 1986 bid for the properties ‘mani­
fested an intent to treat the judgment as valid.’ 
”).
	
To be sure, courts have recognized that delay in 
contesting the validity of a judgment is not enough, stand­
ing alone, to manifest an intention to treat the judgment as 
valid. Johnson v. State, Dept. of Rev. ex rel. Lamontaigne, 
973 So 2d 1236 (Fla Dist Ct App 2008); Sprang v. Petersen 
Lumber, Inc., 165 Ariz 257, 798 P2d 395 (Ariz Ct App 1990). 
However, they have also recognized that, if a party has man­
ifested such an intention, the party may be estopped from 
seeking to set the judgment aside for insufficiency of service. 
Johnson, 973 So 2d at 1239; Sprang, 165 Ariz at 265.
	
With those principles in mind, we turn to the facts 
of this case. We note, as an initial matter, that defendant’s 
attorney (Renshaw) expressly accepted the validity of the 
default judgment in his discussions with Shriners’ attor­
ney (Grant). The trial court reasonably could have found 
on this record that, when Renshaw spoke with Grant on 
January 14, 2008, Renshaw acknowledged “the inability of 
the defendant Mack Woods to set aside the Default Order 
and Judgment for lack of a meritorious defense.” Renshaw 
was defendant’s agent and, as such, had authority to bind 
defendant in discussing matters within his authority—i.e., 
in discussing Shriners’ claims against defendant.11
	
Beyond that, defendant affirmatively treated the 
default judgment as valid when he used it to establish the 
damages that, he argued, flowed from his former lawyer’s 
malpractice. Defendant did not merely acknowledge the 
default judgment’s existence; he implicitly acknowledged its 
	
11  Although Renshaw had been retained to represent defendant in the dis­
solution proceeding, defendant stated in his sworn declaration that he “believed 
that Mr. Renshaw was handling the Shriners’ situation.” Defendant thus mani­
fested his intention to have Renshaw represent him both in the dissolution pro­
ceeding and in connection with Shriners’ efforts to collect on the note.
Cite as 364 Or 394 (2019)	
405
validity when he asked the jury to rely on it to determine the 
extent to which his former attorney’s failure to file a notice 
of lis pendens had damaged him. Defendant cannot assert 
that the judgment is an accurate measure of some or all of 
the damages that he sustained as a result of a third party’s 
actions without implicitly acknowledging its validity. Nor 
can it be said that the default judgment was merely a proxy 
for defendant’s obligations under the note. Not only did the 
default judgment conclusively establish those obligations 
(and remove the possibility of any defenses to the enforce­
ment of the note), but it imposed additional obligations that 
were only inchoate in the note. The judgment included attor­
ney fees, court costs, and pre- and post-judgment interest. 
To put the point simply, defendant’s obligations under the 
note were repayment of $137,000 plus accrued interest; by 
defendant’s own calculation in the malpractice action, his 
obligation under the judgment exceeded $221,000.
	
Defendant’s use of the default judgment in the mal­
practice action is difficult to distinguish from the first illus­
tration in section 66 of the Restatement. That illustration 
states:
	
“A brings an action against B for settlement of accounts 
and division of property jointly owned by them. Inadequate 
notice is given to B. Judgment by default is entered, of 
which B becomes aware. In a subsequent negotiation with 
C, B describes his interest in the property by reference to 
the terms of the judgment. This may be regarded as a suf­
ficient manifestation by B of an intention to treat the divi­
sion of property by the judgment as binding on him.”
Restatement § 66 illustration 1. Using the default judgment 
to establish some or all the damages that a third party owes 
him was a stronger manifestation of defendant’s intention to 
treat the judgment as binding on him than B’s description of 
his property in the illustration.
	
We also conclude that granting defendant relief in 
this case “would impair another person’s substantial inter­
est of reliance on the judgment.” Restatement §  66(2). As 
noted above, the parties have framed the issue in this case 
as one of judicial estoppel. Specifically, Shriners has argued, 
and we agree, that (1) defendant received a benefit in his 
406	
Shriners Hospitals for Children v. Cox
malpractice claim (he recovered damages that he measured 
by reference to the default judgment); (2) this proceeding 
is a different proceeding from the malpractice action; and 

(3) defendant has taken inconsistent positions in the two 
proceedings.12 See Hampton Tree Farms, Inc. v. Jewett, 320 
Or 599, 611, 892 P2d 683 (1995) (listing those elements of 
judicial estoppel).
	
We explained in Hampton Tree Farms that judi­
cial estoppel protects ‘ 
“the judiciary, as an institution, from 
the perversion of judicial machinery.’ 
” Id. at 609 (quoting 
Edwards v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 690 F2d 595, 599 (6th Cir 
1982)). It is the court’s reliance that the doctrine protects. 
In this case, the trial court and the jury in the malpractice 
action (to say nothing of Hill and Hill’s insurer) relied on 
defendant’s implicit assertion that the default judgment was 
a valid measure of the damages that flowed from Hill’s mal­
practice. Defendant can hardly rely on the default judgment 
in the malpractice action to establish that he owes Shriners 
the principal amount of the loan, pre- and post-judgment 
interest, and the attorney fees that Shriners incurred in 
suing on the note and then seek to have the default judg­
ment set aside to avoid paying Shriners the very funds that 
he told the court, the jury, and Hill he owed Shriners.
	
We summarize our conclusions briefly. Other courts 
have recognized that judicial estoppel can prevent a party 
from setting aside a default judgment entered without 
proper service. We agree with those decisions. We also con­
clude that, in the circumstances of this case, judicial estop­
pel prevents defendant from seeking to set aside the default 
judgment. We accordingly reverse the Court of Appeals deci­
sion and remand the case to the Court of Appeals so that it 
can consider the issues that it did not decide initially.
	
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed. 
The case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further 
proceedings.
	
12  Defendant argues on review that he did not take inconsistent positions 
in the malpractice action and in moving to set aside the judgment aside. We 
reach a different conclusion. In the malpractice action, defendant held out the 
default judgment as a valid measure of the damages that he sought to recover 
from a third party; in the motion to set aside the default judgment, defendant has 
argued that the default judgment is void and unenforceable.