Opinion ID: 1924949
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exercise of the Discretionary Power of this Court.

Text: Past decisions of this court clearly establish the principle that a judgment cannot be vacated under sub. (1) of sec. 269.46, Stats., after the lapse of sixty days subsequent to the expiration of the term of court at which the judgment was rendered because of error committed in rendering the judgment. Loomis v. Rice (1875), 37 Wis. 262; Landon v. Burke (1873), 33 Wis. 452; and Spafford v. Janesville (1862), 15 Wis. 526 (). [3] The reason for this is that under sub. (1) of sec. 269.46 (formerly R. S. 1858, ch. 125, sec. 38), the power to grant relief from a judgment, more than sixty days after the end of the term of court at which it was rendered, is limited solely to cases of mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. See Loomis v. Rice, supra , and cases cited therein. Therefore, even though there had been errors in the judgment which might shock the conscience of the trial court, it is powerless to grant relief from the judgment after this sixty-day period (after the end of the term of court) has elapsed, i.e., where there is no proper showing of mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. Sec. 251.09, Stats., however, grants to this court the broad power to reverse an order or judgment on appeal where it is probable that justice has for any reason miscarried. There are two reasons why it would shock the conscience of this court to permit the instant default judgment to stand unmodified. The first is that the course of conduct of the parties clearly discloses that the judgment is only serving the purpose of providing the plaintiff-lessors with security against the contingency of the defendants again becoming delinquent in their rent. Plaintiffs have permitted the defendant-lessee to continue in possession upon paying the monthly instalments of rent specified in the original lease. As the judgment now stands, however, there is nothing to prevent the plaintiffs from utilizing the judgment to levy upon assets of defendants even though defendants may not be currently in default in paying such monthly instalments. The second feature is that the judgment is, by its very terms, drawing interest. We construe our discretionary power under sec. 251.09, Stats., as only extending to reversal of the order appealed from and that such statute gives us no power to directly modify the default judgment. Therefore, in order to prevent what may be a serious miscarriage of justice, we have decided to reverse the order appealed from and to remand the matter to the trial court with directions to open up the judgment, so as to permit a trial of the issues raised by defendants' proposed answer and counterclaim. This does not mean that the trial court should vacate the judgment. The default judgment may be opened up so as to permit a defense on the merits letting the judgment stand in the meantime until the outcome of such trial on the merits. Spohn v. Norden (1959), 7 Wis. (2d) 383, 386, 96 N. W. (2d) 831; State ex rel. Chinchilla Ranch, Inc., v. O'Connell (1952), 261 Wis. 86, 97, 51 N. W. (2d) 714; State ex rel. Bornemann v. Schultz (1952), 260 Wis. 395, 402, 50 N. W. (2d) 922. By the Court. The order appealed from is reversed, and cause remanded with directions to permit the opening up of the judgment as outlined in the last paragraph of the within opinion. HALLOWS, J. ( dissenting ). The majority opinion takes the long road home. After holding the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to set aside the judgment, the majority recognizes the injustice of a judgment for security purposes and seeks to remedy its effects by the exercise of the court's discretionary powers. In my opinion, the plaintiffs are not entitled on their present showing to any judgment even as security. The trial court abused its discretion in refusing to set aside the judgment under sec. 269.46, Stats., and I would reverse and allow the filing of the answer and the counterclaim. No justification exists to complicate and confuse this case with the concept of opening up a judgment but not vacating it.