Opinion ID: 2107819
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Extrinsic Evidence to Impeach Judgment in Revival Proceedings

Text: [3,4] Under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-1515 (Cum. Supp. 2002), a judgment becomes dormant and ceases to be a lien upon real estate when an execution is not sued out within 5 years after the date of entry of the judgment or if 5 years have intervened between the date of the last execution issued on the judgment and the time of suing out another writ of execution. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-1420 (Reissue 1995), if a judgment becomes dormant, it may be revived, so long as the action to revive the judgment is commenced within 10 years after it became dormant. [5-8] However, a proceeding for revival of a judgment is not the commencement of an action but is a continuation of the suit in which the judgment was rendered. Mousel Law Firm v. The Townhouse, Inc., 259 Neb. 113, 608 N.W.2d 571 (2000). An order of revivor is a mere continuation of the original action and continues the vitality of the original judgment with all of its incidents from the time of its rendition. Id. The court, however, cannot retry the merits of the original suit in the revivor proceedings. See, Krause v. Long, 109 Neb. 846, 192 N.W. 729 (1923); St. Paul Harvester Co. v. Mahs, 82 Neb. 336, 117 N.W. 702 (1908). Rather, the only defenses available against an application to revive are (1) there is no judgment to revive, (2) the purported judgment is void, and (3) the judgment was paid or otherwise discharged. See, Gergen v. The Western Union Life Ins. Co., 149 Neb. 203, 30 N.W.2d 558 (1948); Baker Steel & Machinery Co. v. Ferguson, 137 Neb. 578, 290 N.W. 449 (1940). [9] Jerald claims that the judgment was void because the court never attained personal jurisdiction over him. A judgment entered without personal jurisdiction is void. See, In re Interest of William G., 256 Neb. 788, 592 N.W.2d 499 (1999); Enewold v. Olsen, 39 Neb. 59, 64, 57 N.W. 765, 766 (1894) (personal judgment rendered against a defendant without notice to him, or an appearance by him, is without jurisdiction, and is utterly and entirely void); Eaton v. Hasty, 6 Neb. 419 (1877) (holding that when personal jurisdiction is based on general appearance made by attorney who was not authorized to make appearance, judgment is void). To support his contention that the judgment was void, Jerald offered extrinsic evidencehis own testimony that he was never served and that the attorney who purported to enter a general appearance on his behalf lacked the authority to do so. Cave, however, contends that a defendant in revival proceedings must stay within the judgment record and therefore cannot offer extrinsic evidence to prove that the original judgment was void for lack of jurisdiction. According to Cave, Jerald's remedy was to bring a suit in equity to vacate the judgment. To resolve the issue, we review the history of revival proceedings in Nebraska. At common law, a writ of scire facias was the appropriate method for reviving a dormant judgment. See Eaton v. Hasty, supra . The writ required the defendant to show cause why the dormant judgment should not be revived. See Black's Law Dictionary 1347 (7th ed. 1999). When a plaintiff invoked scire facias to revive a judgment, the defendant was limited to two defenses: (1) payment and satisfaction of the judgment and (2) nul tiel record. See, McCormick v. Carey, 62 Neb. 494, 87 N.W. 172 (1901); Bank of Eau Claire v. Reed, 232 Ill. 238, 83 N.E. 820 (1908). Nul tiel record was a common-law plea which alleged (1) that there is no such Record at all in existence, or (2) a Variance, the Record being Different from that Declared on by the Plaintiff, or (3) that the Judgment is Void on the Face of the Record.  (Emphasis supplied.) Joseph H. Koffler & Alison Reppy, Handbook of Common Law Pleading § 264 at 505 (1969). Thus, the defendant could not use extrinsic evidence to show that the judgment was entered without jurisdiction. See, Bank of Eau Claire, supra ; Simpson v. Watson, 15 Mo. App. 425 (1884). Nebraska's statutory revival scheme supplanted the writ of scire facias as the means for reviving a judgment. See, Lashmett v. Prall, 83 Neb. 732, 120 N.W. 206 (1909); Wright v. Sweet, 10 Neb. 190, 4 N.W. 1043 (1880). But the statute is silent on defenses. Some of our early cases suggestedbut did not expressly holdthat a defendant's defenses were identical to those in scire facias proceedings and that thus the defendant could not use extrinsic evidence to show that the judgment was void for lack of jurisdiction. McCormick, supra ; Wright, supra. But our practice departed from the language in our decisions. For example, in Johnson v. Carpenter, 77 Neb. 49, 108 N.W. 161 (1906), the return of summons in the original action recited that a certified copy of the summons had been left at the defendant's usual place of abode. In the revival proceedings, we allowed the defendant to introduce affidavits showing that when he was served, he did not live at the address where the copy of the summons was left. Similarly, in St. Paul Harvester Co. v. Mahs, 82 Neb. 336, 117 N.W. 702 (1908), we affirmed a denial of revival based on extrinsic evidence showing that the defendant had not been served, even though the judgment record contained a sheriff's return of service reciting that service had been made. [10] Johnson, supra, and St. Paul Harvester Co., supra, demonstrated that Nebraska adopted a more lenient attitude toward allowing extrinsic evidence in revival proceedings than what was allowed in scire facias proceedings. Thus, while a defendant in revival proceedings may not use extrinsic evidence to relitigate the merits of the case, the defendant can introduce extrinsic evidence to show that the original judgment was void because the court entered it without jurisdiction. Thus, the district court did not err in ruling that the county court could consider Jerald's extrinsic evidence.