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35 Mo. 366

Norman v. Hooker

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided January 15, 1865

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1865-01-15

<p>Practice — Default.—It is erroneous to enter a judgment by default while there is an answer on file remaining undisposed of.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1865-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently April 1933

5 state decisions

2018651870188018901900191019201930decided

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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Bates, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2Norman sued Hooker and Harrison upon a promissory note. They answered; two days afterward judgment by default was given against them. At the next term Hooker *367moved the court to set aside the judgment, because it was irregularly entered whilst the answer was undisposed of. At this term there was a new judge on the bench who had been of counsel in the case, and the bill of exceptions shows that the motion was overruled on the ground that the judge had been of counsel in the case. An entry made by the clerk on the record, shows that for the same reason the court refused to entertain the motion. Either disposition of the motion was wrong; the judgment should have been set aside, and if the judge upon the bench was, by reason of his former relation to the case incompetent to sit in it, a change of venue should have been granted. No opinion is given, of course, as to the sufficiency of the answer which had been filed by the defendants.

¶3The judgment of the Circuit Court in refusing the motion to set aside the original judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded to the Circuit Court, where the judgment by default will be set aside and the cause be proceeded with.

Judges Bay and Dryden concur.
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