Court Opinion

ID: 9637287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:02:32.989387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:55.167584
License: Public Domain

HOOD,
Associate Judge (dissenting).
I agree that the entry of judgment by default with no statement of the amount of the judgment was not a final judgment and was nothing more than an interlocutory entry of default; and I agree that the entry resulted from judicial error and not from clerical error. I also agree that the rules of the Municipal Court apparently intend that relief from an entry of default be granted only under the restrictions of Rule 60(b), relating to relief from final judgments ; and I think the result is unfortunate in that it apparently ignores the long-established distinction between the control of a court over interlocutory orders and its power to relieve from final judgments.
However, I believe that in the present case the court had jurisdiction to set aside the entry of default.1 It appears from the statement of proceedings and evidence that on the very day the court ordered the entry, a doubt arose in the mind of the court as to its correctness and the court sua sponte took the matter under consideration. The court should have notified appellant that this was being done, especially in view of the length of time the matter was under consideration, but the fact remains that it ■was under consideration. If Rule 60(b) has any application here, it should be remembered that the time limitations of that rule apply only to the filing of a motion and not to the action by the court on such motion.
When the trial court ordered entry of default and almost immediately thereafter questioned the correctness of its action, the rules of the court, confusing as they may be, did not prevent taking the matter under consideration or require that a decision be reached within a particular time. And since the matter was already under consideration, the court did not need a motion to the same effect within the three-month period in order to have the power to act. When the court concluded that it had erroneously ordered the entry, it had jurisdiction to correct its error, even though it mislabeled the error as “clerical.”

. If the court had jurisdiction, then the order vacating the default was not appealable. Harco, Inc. v. Greenville Steel & Foundry Co., D.C.Mun.App., 112 A.2d 920.