Court Opinion

ID: 9832835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:14:13.979057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:53.617473
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The concluding sentence of the judgment in this case is: "Entered this the 4th day of June, A.D.1943”. Immediately thereunder appears the signature of the Judge.
 Rule 356, Rules of Civil Procedure, requires that the appeal bond must be filed thirty days after the date of the judgment. (Emphasis ours.) It is now the settled construction of the rule, that the bond must be filed thirty days after the judgment is pronounced or rendered by the judge, and not from the date that the judgment was entered by the clerk. The word “entered” as applied to judgments, ordinarily has the technical signification of the action of the clerk of recording the judgment upon the minutes of the court. But the quoted sentence above has undoubtedly been recorded by the clerk as an integral part of the judgment. And we have concluded that we were in error in construing the word “entered” in its technical sense, as indicating an exercise of the clerk’s function in connection with the judgment. Upon the face of the judgment it appears to be as much a part of the pronouncement of the court as any other part of the judgment. It is now important that the date of the judgment be authoritatively determined by the court when the judgment is rendered. In using the word “entered” in dating the judgment, the court was indicating thereby an exercise of his judicial function thereon. It was no part of his function to “enter” the judgment in the minutes. And in using the word’“entered” the court established the “date” of its rendition upon the face of the judgment as unmistakeably as though he had used the word “rendered”.
The motion for rehearing is granted, the judgment of dismissal of the appeal is set aside, and the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.