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23 Ind. 460

Jenkins v. Long

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided November 15, 1864

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1864-11-15

<p>Practice.—In a proceeding to correct a mistake of the clerk in the entry of a judgment, a complaint was filed showing the facts, a summons was issued,- demurrers were filed and acted upon, and issues formed, and a trial by jury had, as in ordinary cases.</p> <p>Sold, that such proceedings were irregular.</p> <p>Records—Clerical Errors.—The court has power to make its records speak the truth as to what it has done, upon the suggestion that its ministerial officer has not correctly recorded the judgment actually rendered.</p> <p>Same—Evidence.-—On a motion to correct a clerical error in the entry of a judgment, evidence is admissible outside of the judgment sought to be amended.</p>

Relies on Burson v. Blair

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1864-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently May 1979 · most notably Clouser v. Mock (1959), 170 Ind. App. 84 - Auto-Teria, Inc. v. Ahern (1976)

24 state decisions

100186418701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Erazer, J.

¶1This was what must properly be called a proceeding by notice and motion to correct a mistake by the clerk in the entry of a judgment as to the amount thereof. The judgment actually rendered by the court, was for the amount of two notes sued on, but the clerk, by mistake in computation, entered the judgment for a less sum. A complaint was filed stating the facts, and a *461summons was issued, but no objection was made below to the mode of proceeding, and we may, therefore, properly regard the complaint as the motion, and the summons as the notice. There were demurrers filed and acted upon, and issues made as in ordinary cases, and a jury trial, all of which was irregular; but no objection was made to it at the time, and no question is now made about it. The result reached was, that the clerical error was ordered to be corrected, and the defendant appeals.

¶2Two questions only are presented for our consideration by the argument of the appellant: 1. Could the correction be made after the expiration of one year from the rendition of the judgment? 2. Was extrinsic evidence admissible? The counsel for the appellants maintain the negative of both these questions, and we ax*e favored with no argument whatever on the other side.

¶31. The statute relied on by the appellants we suppose to be section 99 of the code, which authorizes the court, within a year’, to relieve a party from a judgment taken against him, . . . and supply an omission ixi any px'Oceediugs. But we do not think this statute at all applicable to the qxxestion. It was not sought to supply any “omission” in the proceedings, for on their face they were regular and complete, but simply to correct a clerical error of commission. The inherent power of the court was invoked—a power much older than the code—to make its record speak the truth as to what it had done, upon the suggestion that its ministerial officer, by mistake, had not correctly recorded its judgment actually rendered. Burson v. Blair, 12 Ind. 371. The authority to do this is as old as the reign of Henry VI, and was then conferred by act of parliament, which is in force in this state. 1 G. & H. 415; 2 Tidd, 769.

¶42. - Was any evidence admissible, upon the hearing of the motion, outside of the judgment sought to be amended ? This question can receive only an affirmative answer. It would be in vain to seek relief against a clerical error’, *462unless such error may be shown to exist; and the instances would be rare indeed in which the error would be apparent upon the face of the record itself. It is barely possible to imagine cases in which an inspection of the whole record would show that a clerical error, like the one in this case, had been committed. No question is before us, in this instance, as to the kind of evidence which would be sufficient to justify an amendment after the proceedings have ceased to be in fieri, and. we are, therefore, not called upon to discuss that subject.

George Holland and J. F. Kibby, for appellant.M. Wilson, for appellee.

¶5Judgment is affirmed, with costs.

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