Court Opinion

ID: 9689685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:43:03.386334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:51.413317
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
This case arose when the clerk of courts for Pennington County, faced with the magistrate court operating in a separate building from the circuit courthouse, commenced keeping a separate judgment book and docket at the magistrate court wherein were entered all judgments of the magistrate court. Contrary to statute,1 these *609judgments were entered without demand by the party in whose favor the judgment was rendered that a certified transcript of the judgment be filed in the office of the clerk of courts at the Pennington County Courthouse. The clerk of courts advised that it was not necessary for her to enter such judgments in the circuit court judgment book and upon the circuit court judgment docket for the same to constitute a lien upon real property of the judgment debtor. Notwithstanding the statutory verbiage relied upon by the majority, the court has gratuitously amended SDCL 15-16-9, SDCL 16-12A, and Article V of the South Dakota Constitution.
As I view the case, there are two issues. First, whether a magistrate’s judgment becomes a lien without filing under SDCL 15-16-9; and second, whether a clerk of courts has any authority to keep two sets of judgment books and dockets.
With respect to the first issue, the decision in effect drastically amends SDCL 15-16-9 which explicitly provides that demand for transcription be made by the prevailing party in order for a magistrate judgment to become a circuit court judgment and a lien on real property. It is noteworthy that the 1978 Legislature did not pass House Bill 1279 entitled “An Act to Allow Liens on Magistrate Courts’ Judgments” which would have amended SDCL 15-16-7 to authorize the Pennington County Clerk to do exactly what she is now doing. The majority undertakes to do what the legislature refused to do and I simply do not think this court has that authority. There is certainly none cited in the majority opinion. Consequently, until the legislature acts in this regard, I think that the lien statute must be read as it stands on the books.
It is also noteworthy that in 1974 the legislature amended SDCL 15-16-9 by changing the phrase “justice of the peace” to “magistrate” and “may be filed” to “shall be filed.” At the same time, the legislature repealed SDCL 15-36 which contained provisions for executing on a justice of the peace judgment within five years of its rendition. The repeal of this chapter was not accompanied by the enactment of analogous provisions to permit execution on a magistrate’s judgment. Consequently, the only avenue presently available for executing on a magistrate judgment is to obtain a lien pursuant to SDCL 15-16-9 which requires that the magistrate judgment first be transcribed and become a circuit court judgment.2 To follow the majority opinion we would have to overrule Williams v. Rice, 6 S.D. 9, 60 N.W. 153 (1894) and Garlock v. Calkins, 14 S.D. 90, 84 N.W. 393 (1900). Both cases interpret the predecessor statute of SDCL 15-16-9 and stand for the proposition that the transcription and docketing upon request of the prevailing party of what was then a justice of the peace judgment and is now a magistrate judgment is a condition precedent to that judgment becoming a circuit court judgment and a lien on the debtor’s property. Therefore, I would affirm the trial court’s conclusion that a magistrate judgment does not rise to the level of a circuit court judgment or become a lien on real property absent demand of the prevailing party that the judgment be filed in the clerk of courts’ office.
The second issue, can a clerk of courts keep two sets of judgment books and dockets, one in her office in the courthouse and another in a satellite office, is obfuscated in the majority opinion. The majority would apparently amend SDCL 16-12A, Magistrates, and Article V of the South Dakota Constitution, the Judicial article, by elevating magistrate courts to the status of circuit courts, with their own clerk and judgment records in satellite offices. I will grant that it is not too difficult for an *610abstractor or interested person to walk from the clerk’s office in the 300 block of St. Joseph Street to the satellite office at 22 Main Street, both in Rapid City. But what if the satellite office was in Wall? I find no statutory authority for such a procedure and the majority cites us to none.3 The purpose of recording in these books is notice. If the clerk can have two sets of books, why not three or four? I would affirm the trial judge’s conclusions that the judgment book and docket contemplated by SDCL 15-6-58 and SDCL 15-16-6 are each one book or set of books consecutively numbered and situated in the main office of the clerk of courts of each county. In my opinion, the clerk’s proposal on both issues goes entirely against the statutory scheme.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice WOLLMAN joins in this dissent.

. SDCL 15-16-9 provides:
A magistrate on the demand of a party in whose favor he shall have rendered a judgment must give a certified transcript thereof which shall be filed in the office of the clerk of courts of the county in which the judgment was rendered and such- clerk must thereupon enter such judgment in the judgment books, and upon the judgment docket; and, from the time of the docketing thereof, it becomes a judgment of the circuit court and a lien upon real property, and a certified transcript of the docket of such judgment may be filed, and the judgment docketed accordingly in any other county with the same effect as if the judgment had been rendered *609in the circuit court where such judgment is so docketed.

. That the legislature intended magistrate judgments to be inferior to circuit court judgments is also apparent from SDCL 15-20-4 regarding proceedings supplementary to execution which states that “[t]he provisions of this chapter shall apply to judgments of magistrates’ courts, transcripts of which have been filed in the circuit court, with the same force and effect as to judgments rendered by that court.”

. The majority opinion grants the presiding judge the authority to order the number of books and location. The statutory authority cited makes no reference to books. Further, the record does not reveal that the clerk’s action in this case was under the auspices of the presiding judge of the Seventh Circuit. Without adequate proof in the record and without any notation of authority, the majority place their imprimatur on the arbitrary actions of the clerk herself.