Case Name: Thomas Carlisle et a. versus Charles Thompson
Court: New Hampshire Superior Court
Jurisdiction: New Hampshire
Decision Date: 1831-05
Citations: 5 N.H. 411
Docket Number: 
Parties: Thomas Carlisle et a. versus Charles Thompson.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Hampshire Reports
Volume: 5
Pages: 411–413

Head Matter:
Thomas Carlisle et a. versus Charles Thompson.
Where the records of a deceased justice of the peace have been lodged with a clerk of the court of common pleas, such clerk may, from the minutes made by the justice in his docket, enter up judgment in the same manner that judgments in the common pleas are entered up from minutes kept by the clerk of that court.
Debt upon a judgment for $5,17 debt, and ⅜3,67 costs, rendered by Jonas Raker, a justice of the peace, on the 21st February, 1820, in favor of the plaintiffs, against the defendant. The justice had deceased, and liis records had been lodged with the clerk of the court of common pleas. The only record of the judgment above mentioned was the following memorandum in the docket of the sa4d justice.
Coos, February 21,1820. At a justice court held this day before me, Jonas Baker, Esquire, one of the justices of the peace in and for said county of Coos, at the dwelling house ofS.A. Pearson, Esquire, in Lancaster, in said county, at nine of the clock, A. M., the following action was entered, heard and disposed of, by and before me-
JONAS BAKER, Jus. Peace.
Thomas Carlisle, et a. v. Charles Thompson.
Default. Judgment for the plaintiffs-debt, $5,17
costs, 3,6?
8,84
Execution issued February 22, 1820. ,25
The execution thus issued was lodged in the said clerk’s office with a return that it was in no part satisfied. Application had been made to the said clerk to enter up and certify a regular judgment in the said case ; but entertaining doubts whether he could legally do this, he declined it. The plaintiffs then moved fora mandamus directing the clerk to make up and certify a regular judgment.
Pearson, for the plaintiffs.
Young, for the defendant.

Opinion:
By the court.
The statute of June 10, 1791, provides, that when any justiqe of the peace shall die, the book of records and files of the said justice shall be lodged with the clerk of the court of common pleas, in the county in which such deceased justice was a justice of the peace, and that the clerks of the courts of common pleas shall give attested copies of the records and papers of deceased justices, that may be lodged in their offices, and that they, respectively, shall be deemed, for the purposes aforesaid, proper certifying officers.. And we entertain no doubt that in all cases, where there are suffi-fieient memoranda to enable a clerk to make a regular judgment, it is his duty to do it when requested, and to certify the judgment thus reduced to form, as the judgment rendered in the case. Regular judgments in the court of common pleas have rarely been made up in this state, and yet it has been the constant practice for clerks to make up and certify judgments from the memoranda of their predecessors. Indeed, if this could not be done, great embarrassment would be felt in many cases. Regular judgments are rarely, if ever, entered upon the records of justices of the peace ; yet it is the constant practice to make upa regular judgment from the minutes which the justice keeps, and to certify the judgment thus made up, whenever a copy of the judgment is required.