Court Opinion

ID: 9572223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:39:48.566022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:57.673551
License: Public Domain

Judge Martin (Robert M.)
dissenting.
I am of the opinion that the record below does not disclose a manifest abuse of discretion entitling this Court to interfere with the trial judge’s refusal to vacate the default entry.
The North Carolina Supreme Court, in Settee v. Electric Ry., 170 N.C. 365, 367, 86 S.E. 1050, 1050-51 (1915), attempted to shed some light on the meaning of “abuse of discretion” stating that
The discretion of the judge ... is not an arbitrary one to be exercised capriciously or according to his absolute will, but reasonably and with the object solely of presenting what may seem to him an inequitable result. The power is an inherent one, and is regarded as essential to the proper administration of the law. . . . While the necessity for exercising this discretion, in any given case, is not to be determined by the mere inclination of the judge, but by a sound and enlightened judgment in an effort to attain the end of all law, namely, the doing of even and exact justice, we will yet not supervise it, except, perhaps, in extreme circumstances, not at all likely to arise; and it is therefore practically unlimited.
That Court has been reluctant to find an abuse of discretion and in most instances has carefully guarded the trial courts’ discretionary powers.
*92While it has been recognized that it is “practically impossible to fashion a rule which could generally pinpoint where a trial judge’s discretion in any matter ends and an abuse thereof begins,” Worthington v. Bynum and Cogdell v. Bynum, 305 N.C. 478, 484, 290 S.E. 2d 599, 604 (1982), I do not feel this case deserves different treatment than those cited in the majority opinion in which the trial judges’ decisions to deny or grant defendants’ motions to vacate entry of default were upheld on appeal. Although the majority may disagree with the able and conscientious trial judge, there is sufficient evidence to warrant his denial of defendant’s motion to vacate entry of default. First, defendant failed to include a copy of the complaint and summons with the medical records which he mailed to his insurer, a fact which may account for the improper placement of the medical records in the insurer’s “incidental” file. Second, defendant did not check back with his insurer or his assigned counsel, even though he was never contacted once he had mailed the records to his insurer.
In my opinion the majority has “substituted what it considered to be its own better judgment . . . and did not strictly review the record for the singular cause of determining whether . . . [the judge] had clearly abused his discretion. . . .” Id. at 486, 290 S.E. 2d at 604. Since I “believe that our appellate courts should place great faith and confidence in the ability of our trial judges to make the right decision, fairly and without partiality,” Id. at 487, 290 S.E. 2d at 605, I cannot participate in the majority’s finding of an abuse of discretion on the part of the trial judge.