Court Opinion

ID: 9577591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:36:22.661969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:52.292396
License: Public Domain

McALLISTER, J.,
dissenting.
In my opinion three years is an unreasonable time, as a matter of law, for plaintiff to wait before asking a court to set aside a default judgment entered in her favor and on her motion. This is especially true when she spent the three-year period attempting to *406enforce the judgment and moved to set it aside only when her efforts to collect the judgment proved unavailing.
Until OKS 1.055 was enacted in 1959 a trial court had the power to modify or vacate its own valid judgments and decrees only within the term of court during which the judgment or decree was entered, except as specifically provided by statute. Finch v. Pacific Reduction etc. Co., 113 Or 670, 675, 234 P 296 (1925). OKS 1.055 provides as follows:
“(1) A term of court is a period of time appointed for the convenient transaction of the business of the court. The existence or nonexistence of a term of court has no effect on the duties and powers of the court.
“(2) Notwithstanding that an act is authorized or required to be done before, during or after the expiration of a term of court, it may be done within a reasonable period of time.”
This statute was enacted at the request of the Legislative Interim Committee on Judicial Administration.(1) When it was enacted the longest circuit court term in this state was seven months and most were much shorter. See OKS 4.110 to 4.270. The brevity of the statutory terms of court is indicative of the legislative intent in substituting a reasonable time for the doing of an act which formerly could only have been done within the term.
The majority opinion cites Miller v. Miller, 228 Or 301, 365 P2d 86 (1961) and Koennecke v. Koennecke, 239 Or 274, 397 P2d 203 (1964). In Miller the motion *407to set aside the decree was filed 27 days after the decree was entered and three days after the term had expired. In Koenneclce the decree was entered on August 8, 1963, and the amendment was entered on September 13, 1963. These cases hardly authorize the filing of a motion to vacate a judgment more than three years after the entry of the judgment when the judgment has been entered in favor of the moving party and at her request; when she had attempted for three years to enforce the judgment and only when she was unsuccessful asked to have it vacated so that she would not be hampered thereby.
In my view the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.

 Report of Legislative Interim Committee on Judicial Administration, January 1959, Part I, Organization and Operation of the Courts.