Case Name: VALLEY STATE BANK, LTD., a Corporation, Appellant, v. THE POST FALLS LAND & WATER CO., LTD., a Corporation, and THOMAS J. COFFMAN, Respondents
Court: Idaho Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Idaho
Decision Date: 1916-11-17
Citations: 29 Idaho 587
Docket Number: 
Parties: VALLEY STATE BANK, LTD., a Corporation, Appellant, v. THE POST FALLS LAND & WATER CO., LTD., a Corporation, and THOMAS J. COFFMAN, Respondents.
Judges: 
Reporter: Idaho Reports
Volume: 29
Pages: 587–608

Head Matter:
(November 17, 1916.)
VALLEY STATE BANK, LTD., a Corporation, Appellant, v. THE POST FALLS LAND & WATER CO., LTD., a Corporation, and THOMAS J. COFFMAN, Respondents.
[161 Pac. 242.]
Default — Setting Aside — Affidavit for — Sufficiency of — Discretion of Court — Sound, Legal.
1. The showing made in this ease to set aside the default reviewed and held insufficient to support or justify the order of the trial court in setting aside the default.
2. The failure of the attorney to familiarize himself with the law covering the practice of the forum wherein Ms ease is pending will not be held to be excusable negleet, since it is incumbent upon the lawyer from another state, practicing law in this state, to familiarize himself with the rules of practice of the courts in this state.
3. The action of the trial court in setting aside a default is governed by sound, legal discretion, and where it appears that such discretion has been abused, the order setting aside a default will be reversed on appeal.
[As to opening or vacating judgment because of negligence or inadvertence of attorney, see note in 80 Am St. 264.]
APPEAL from the District Court of tbe Eighth Judicial District for Kootenai County. Hon. Robt. M. Dunn, Judge.
Action to recover on a promissory note and default judgment entered, and on motion of defendant the court made an order setting aside the default.
Reversed.
W. F. Morrison, Jr., and Charles L. Heitman, for Appellant.
While an order of the district court setting aside or refusing to set aside a judgment by default rests much in the discretion of the court, this discretion is not a mental discretion, to be exercised ex graMa, but is a legal discretion to be exercised in conformity with law. (Bailey v. Taafe, 29 Cal. 423; Holzeman v. Henneberry, 11 Ida. 428, 83 Pac. 497; Harr v. Eight, 18 Ida. 53, 108 Pac. 539 ,• Hall v. Whittier, 20‘ Ida. 120, 127, 116 Pac. 1031; Domer v. Stone, 27 Ida. 279, 149 Pac. 505.)
It is well settled that the neglect of the attorney is the neglect of the client!
Forgetfulness on the part of the attorney is not sufficient excuse for opening a default judgment. (Scilley v. Babcock, 39 Mont. 536, 104 Pac. 677; Williamson v. Cummings Bock Drill Co., 95 Cal. 652, 30 Pac. 762; People v. Bains, 23 Cal. 128; Herbst Importing Co. v. Hogan, 16 Mont. 384, 41 Pac. 135; Walsh v. Walsh, 114 111. 655, 3 N. E. 437.) .
An attorney is presumed to know the rules of the court in which he appears, and his absence from the trial because of want of such knowledge is not such excusable neglect as to authorize relief from the judgment. (Brooks v. Johnson, 122 Cal. 569, 55 Pac. 423.)
The fact that counsel was very busy with other matters or other business is not ground for relief from a judgment by default. (Bonnifield v.'Thorp, 71 Fed. 924; Herbst Importing Co. v. Hogan, supra; Dick v. Williams, 87 Wis. 651, 58 N. W. 1029; Claussen v. Johnson, 32 S. C. 86, 11 S. E. 209.)
Cullen, Lee & Matthews, Ralph S. Nelson and Elder & Elder, for Respondents.
The court erred in finding that the judgment by default was given and obtained through the mistake, inadvertence and excusable neglect of Coffman and his attorneys. (Howe v. Independence etc. Min. Co., 29 Cal. 72; Francis v. Coa, 33 Cal. 323; Watson v. San Francisco etc. B. B. Co., 41 Cal. 17.)
In cases of this character it is only where it is plainly apparent from the record that the court has abused its discretion that the appellate court will disturb the action of the lower. (Pease v. County of Kootenai, 7 Ida. 731, 65 Pae. 432; Pittock v. Buck, 15 Ida. 47, 96 Pae. 212.)
. The attorney for respondent having disregarded the law and served the papers upon the nonresident attorneys, now seeks to take advantage of his own mistake and to take snap or default judgment against defendant and prevent the case being tried on its merits. (Anderson v. Goolin, 27 Ida. 334, 149 Pac. 286.)
Service on the defendant of the notice would not have been good. If it would not have been good if made on the defendant, then it was not good if made upon a nonresident attorney when the law held the resident attorney entirely responsible for the conducting of the case. (Abraham v. States, 39 Cal. 150.)

Opinion:
SULLIVAN, C. J.
This action was brought to recover against the defendants on a promissory note executed by the corporation to the defendant Coffman, for the sum of $500 and interest, and indorsed by him. The defendant corporation failed to appear and answer. Coffman appeared and filed a demurrer. Thereafter the attorney for the plaintiff notified the attorney for defendant Coffman that the demurrer would be called for hearing on November 20, 1915. On that date, by agreement of counsel, the demurrer was submitted to the court without argument and was overruled by the court and defendant Coffman was given ten days in which to answer. On November 20th plaintiff's attorney mailed to Cullen, Lee & Matthews, of Spokane, Washington, attorneys for defendant Coffman, a copy of said order overruling the demurrer. On December 3, 1915, Coffman having failed to answer within the time allowed by the court, or at all, his default was entered and judgment entered against him. Thereafter, on December 7, 1915, the attorneys for Coffman served upon plaintiff's attorney a notice that said defendant would on December 18, 1915, move to vacate and set aside said judgment against the defendant and ask permission to file an answer. The ground on which said motion was based was "that said judgment was taken against the said defendant through mistake, inadvertence and excusable neglect of his attorneys."
The motion was based upon the pleadings and files, the affidavit of W. F. Matthews, one of the attorneys for the defendant, the affidavit of Robert H. Elder and the answer of defendant Coffman. The affidavit of Matthews is in substance that he, as one of the attorneys for defendant Coffman, had charge of all the pleadings and files in said case; that the order overruling said defendant's demurrer dated November 20,1915, stated that said defendant had ten days in which to answer plaintiff's complaint; that upon the receipt of said order, affiant noted in his daily docket that the answer would be due in said case on December 7, 1915, whereas the entry should have been made that said answer was due on November 30, 1915; that during the week ending December 4, 1915, affiant was engaged in court in Spokane and did not notice until December 6th that the time for filing said answer, according to the court's order overruling the demurrer, was on November 30, 1915. The affiant immediately telephoned plaintiff's attorney and advised him that the answer was being forwarded. Affiant then learned for the first time that judgment by default had been entered'. Affiant further states that said Coffman has a good and valid defense to plaintiff's complaint, and that the promissory note sued oh was indorsed without recourse by said Coffman to the plaintiff, and that after said indorsement and delivery said bank wrongfully and without authority from said Coffman canceled the words "without recourse," which defense is set úp in defendant's answer; that unless said judgment is vacated, defendant Coffman will suffer great injustice and that affiant believes that on a trial no judgment will be recovered from said Coffman. Affiant further states that said judgment was entered through his, mistake, inadvertence and excusable neglect.
It appears that Elder & Elder, lawyers located at Coeur d'Alene, Kootenai county, were employed as local attorneys, and it is nowhere stated in Matthews ' affidavit that said local attorneys had anything whatever to do with said case. Matthews swears that he, as one of the attorneys of defendant Coffman, had charge of all the pleadings and files, and that the notice overruling the demurrer was served on him. He nowhere states that local counsel had anything to do with the matter at all.
In the affidavit of Robert H. Elder, he states that on or about the 12th of November, 1915, the said firm of attorneys and defendant Coffman arranged with his firm to represent said defendant as local attorneys in said action, and that no notice of the hearing of the demurrer was ever served on him or his firm.
It appears from the showing that Matthews had charge of this case and that Elder & Elder had nothing to do with it; that Matthews had notice of the overruling of Coffman's demurrer and of the order giving him ten days in which to answer, but on account of being very busy in the courts of the state of Washington, and apparently relying upon the practice in the state of Washington of notifying opposing counsel before taking default, he failed to answer for Coffman within the time given by the court. He also relies upon having made a wrong entry in his docket of the date on which Coffman had to answer. He fails to show that Elder & Elder did or was expected to do anything in the ease.
The showing made was clearly insufficient to warrant the trial court in setting aside the default, and this case comes clearly within the rule laid down by this court in Domer v. Stone, 27 Ida. 279, 284, 149 Pac. 505; Kynaston v. Thorp, 29 Ida. 302, 158 Pac. 790, and Hall v. Whittier, 20 Ida. 120, 116 Pac. 1031.
In the Domer v. Stone case it is held that the neglect of a lawyer to familiarize himself with the laws governing the practice of the forum where his case is pending cannot be held to be excusable, when a defendant having received the warning given him by the plain terms of a summons chooses to disregard it and to neglect the laws of the state governing the court from which it was issued, and when he elects to rely upon the purely imaginary security of the rules of practice or customs prevailing in another state, and that "if a default judgment is taken against him the courts are not invested with discretionary power to grant him relief from it." If an attorney is careless and makes a wrong entry in his docket as to the time his client has to answer, that of itself is not sufficient to show mistake, inadvertence or excusable neg lect. If default judgments could thus easily be set aside, the delays of the law would be greatly enhanced.
It clearly appears from the showing made to open the default that the local attorneys had nothing whatever to do with this case, and that attorney Matthews had full control and had full knowledge of the overruling of the demurrer and of the time that the defendant was given to answer.
There was not a sufficient showing of mistake, inadvertence or excusable neglect on the part of defendant's attorneys in this case, and the trial court clearly abused its discretion in setting aside said judgment, since such discretion is confined to a sound legal discretion.
The order setting aside said judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the trial court, with directions to overrule said motion. Costs are awarded to the appellant.