Court Opinion

ID: 9809908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:32:27.193793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:08.288767
License: Public Domain

*22Clark, 0. J\,
dissenting: This is an action to set aside a tax deed and for the recovery of land. The plaintiff filed an unverified complaint. The defendants filed a full answer, duly verified, setting out a full and meritorious defense, but failed to file a defense bond. Thereupon the court, on motion of the plaintiff, struck out the answer and entered judgment by default final.
This was not only an irregularity, but was a fatal defect amounting to a lack of “due process of law.” Thorough research, not only in the North Carolina Reports, but in the decisions of other jurisdictions, fails to “disclose a single instance in which a man’s land, or other property, has been taken from him by default final, and a jury trial denied, when the complaint was not verified.
The reason for this is that from the earliest times an oath has always been required to sustain the allegations of the plaintiff’s demand. When the cause is litigated, there is the protection of an indictment for perjury against the witness who swears falsely. When no answer is filed, the plaintiff must still go on and prove his case except in cases where the demand is for a sum certain, or a definite object is sought to be recovered; then the plaintiff may have judgment by default final, provided the complaint is supported by the oath of the plaintiff. This gives the protection of an indictment for perjury, which is more especially needed when judgment is taken without trial or the benefit of cross-examination.
When the claim is for unliquidated, damages, even then, though the complaint is verified, the plaintiff is only entitled to judgment by default and inquiry which is thereafter instituted before a jury. When the claim is for a sum certain or a definite thing, but the complaint is not verified, the plaintiff is entitled to judgment only by default and inquiry, and in such case'proof has to be made when the inquiry is instituted before the jury. It is only when the complaint is verified and for a sum or a thing certain that judgment by default final can be entered.
It is true that when in an action for the recovery of realty no defense bond is filed, the judge can strike out the answer *23and render judgment by default, but this is only such default as is justified by the state of the complaint. If that is verified, the judgment is by default final. If it is not verified, then it should be by default and inquiry.
Formerly, judgment by default could not be taken in any case where the action was for the recovery of realty. Laws 1869-10, ch. 193, sec. 4, authorized “judgment by default” when no defense bond was given, leaving it open, upon the existing statutes, whether it should be a judgment by default and inquiry or by default final, depending upon whether the complaint was verified or not. In the C. C. P. and the Code of 1883 this was a separate section, being Code, 390, while secs. 385, 386 applied to judgments by default. The Revisal Commissioners in adding this Code, 390, as subsection 4 to Revisal, 556 (which last was Code, 385), did not intend, nor ought it to have the effect, to authorize a judgment by default final when the complaint is not verified. The plaintiff cannot expect the court to adjudicate a matter in his favor finally, and without possibility of defense before a jury, when he fails or is unwilling to swear to the truth of his allegations which would subject himself to liability for perjury if his statements in the complaint are untrue.
In every case in our Court in which by virtue of this statute (1869-70, ch. 193, sec. 4; Code, 390; Revisal, 556, 4) judgment by default final has been taken for realty, upon failure to file a defense bond, the fact is prominently set out that the complaint was verified. Jones v. Best, 121 N. C., 154; Vick v. Baker, 122 N. C., 100; Junge v. McKnight, 135 N. C., 107;, s. c., 137 N. C., 285.
The judgment by default final should be amended into a judgment by default and inquiry, so that the plaintiff shall prove in court the allegations which he has neither sworn to nor proven. The judgment by default and inquiry determines that he has a cause of action, and carries costs.