Opinion ID: 1587294
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Strict Compliance in Cases of Default Judgment

Text: We review a trial court's granting or denial of motion to set aside default judgment for abuse of discretion Tharp v. Smith, 326 Ark. 260, 930 S.W.2d 350 (1996). In her third point on appeal, Smith argues that the trial court erred in setting aside the default judgment as void. She cites numerous cases from other jurisdictions dealing with misnomers. She, however, fails to address the incorrect statement in the summonses as to the time in which Moncrief and Sherwood were required to respond. That misstatement alone is sufficient to set aside the default judgment as void. See Southern Transit Co., Inc. v. Collums, 333 Ark. 170, 966 S.W.2d 906 (1998). While Smith argues otherwise, we agree with the circuit court that Southern Transit is controlling. In that case, we explained that Rule 55 was revised so that more cases would be decided on the merits instead of upon the technicalities that often lead to a default judgment. Southern Transit Co., Inc. v. Collums, 333 Ark. 170, 966 S.W.2d 906 (1998). We reiterated our holding in Carruth v. Design Interiors, Inc., 324 Ark. 373, 921 S.W.2d 944 (1996), as well as Wilburn v. Keenan Companies, Inc., 298 Ark. 461, 768 S.W.2d 531 (1989), that default judgments are void ab initio due to defective process regardless of whether the defendant had actual knowledge of the pending lawsuit. Id. Because the summons in Southern Transit did not strictly comply with the technical requirements of Ark. R. Civ. P. 4(b), we agreed that a trial court could have held the default judgment void due to the defective summons regardless of the fact that Southern Transit had actual knowledge of the complaint against it. Id. Once again, the contents of the summonses in this case is not disputed. The summonses did not identify the defendants correctly, and the summonses misstated the time in which an out-of-state defendant is required to respond. Rule 4(b) mandates that the summons contain the names of the parties and state the time within which the defendant is to appear. Ark. R. Civ. P. 4(b) (2002). In Thompson v. Potlatch Corp., 326 Ark. 244, 249, 930 S.W.2d 355, 358 (1996), we held that the technical requirements of a summons, and compliance with those requirements must be exact. A summons that incorrectly identifies the defendants and misstates the deadline for responding to the complaint does not strictly comply with the service requirements imposed by our rules. Thus, we conclude that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in setting aside the default judgment as void.