Opinion ID: 1971395
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The 1994 Judgment Expiration Claim

Text: Gamles first claims that the Superior Court erred as a matter of law by holding that the judgment had expired on January 14, 2004 under 10 Del. C. § 4711. We review questions of law de novo. [4] The Superior Court determined that because [Gamles] did not renew the judgment within 10 years of entry, the January 13, 1994 judgment has, therefore, expired by force of 10 Del. C. § 4711. [5] Gamles does not dispute that it did not renew, or seek to enforce, its lien of judgment upon the Gibsons' real estate. Gamles, also acknowledges that its lien of judgment expired under 10 Del. C. § 4711. What Gamles claims, however, is that the underlying judgment itself did not expire under that provision. 10 Del. C. § 4711 provides, in pertinent part, that: No judgment for the recovery of money entered or recorded in the Superior Court . . . shall continue a lien upon real estate for a longer term than 10 years next following the day of entry or recording of such judgment . . . unless, within the term of 10 years, the lien of such judgment is renewed and continued. . . . [6] Gamles claims that 10 Del. C. § 4711 does not apply because Gamles is not pursuing a lien upon real estate. Rather, it is pursuing an action to collect on a judgment by way of wage attachment. Therefore (Gamles argues), the Superior Court misinterpreted a lien of judgment upon real estate as being the legal equivalent of a judgment, thereby leading to an erroneous conclusion that, absent a renewal, Section 4711 limits the duration of a judgment to 10 years. Section 4711 is part of the 10 year lien law that was originally enacted in 1893 and is now codified at Title 10, Subchapter I, Lien of Judgments. Under 25 Del. C. § 2718(a), Gamles obtained a judgment lien on the Gibsons' real estate when Gamles' judgment was entered in 1994. [7] Under Section 4711, Gamles' money judgment ceased to operate as a lien upon the Gibsons' real estate after the expiration of 10 years from the date of the judgment's entry. In this case, however, Gamles is pursuing a wage attachment, not a lien on real estate. The issue thus becomes whether the underlying 1994 judgment expired after 10 years from its entry by operation of 10 Del. C. § 4711. Section 4711 provides only that a judgment lien upon real estate will expire unless it is renewed within 10 years after its entry. The statute does not say that the underlying judgment will similarly expire. In Cohen v. Tuffs, [8] this Court reviewed the 10-year lien law in an action to execute against real estate that had been conveyed to a bona fide purchaser after the judgment liens on the property allegedly expired. We held that, although the judgments had then lost their liens by force of the 10-year lien law, the judgments still remained obligations of record, and continued as such until upon the expiration of twenty years from their respective dates of entry. After that, the judgments were, by force of the common-law rule, presumed to have been paid and satisfied. [9] Delaware has no statute of limitations governing judgments or actions on judgments. [10] There is only a rebuttable common law presumption of payment after twenty years. [11] In this case, even that common law presumption of payment did not arise, because the judgment was only 13 years old at the time this action was filed. We conclude, for these reasons, that the Superior Court erred as a matter of law in holding that Gamles' January 14, 2004 judgment had expired by reason of 10 Del. C. § 4711.