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28 Cal. 212

Harding v. Cowing

California Supreme Court

Decided April 15, 1865

California Supreme Court · decided 1865-04-15

<p>Judgment by Default on Gold Coin Note.—In an action upon a note payable in gold coin, if the defendant suffers a default, the Clerk may enter a judgment against him payable in gold coin.</p> <p>A Judgment fixed by Law.—When the law declares what the judgment shall be, a judgment entered on default is not the judgment of the Clerk.</p>

Relies on Wallace v. Eldredge

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1865-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently December 1907

3 state decisions

1018651870188018901900decided

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.

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¶1By the Court,

Shafter, J.

¶2This is an action upon a note payable in gold coin of the United States. The defendants were duly served, and on failure to answer, defaults were duly taken, and a judgment for the recovery of one thousand two hundred and twenty *214dollars in gold coin, with interest thereon, was thereafter entered against them by the Clerk. The question is, whether the Clerk, as such, had power to enter the judgment without judicial direction.

¶3The action was brought for the recovery of money only”— (Practice Act, sec. 150,)—for a particular kind of money, but still a recovery of nothing but money was sought, and that fully liquidated in amount. The default admitted the facts stated in the complaint. Thereafter, no question could have been raised except by'motion to set aside the default, or, perhaps on motion in arrest. No such motion was made, and every point within the purview of a motion in arrest, is within the purview of this appeal. The plaintiff was entitled to a judgment for gold coin, and the statute pronounced the judgment of the law arising upon the facts stated in the complaint. As was held in Wallace v. Eldridge, 27 Cal. 498, “ the Clerk adjudged nothing; he was merely the hand that entered the judgment of the law.” The relief was sub modo special, but still “ the action was for'money only;” and the relief provided for in the judgment is the relief dictated, identically, by the law. The judgment is in no just sense the judgment of the Clerk. His head did not conceive it; it was merely written out by his hand. ,

¶4Judgment affirmed.

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