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6 N.C. 181

Mathews v. . Moore

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided July 5, 1812

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1812-07-05

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The rendering of a judgment is a judicial act, to be done by the court only,”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Eborn v. . Ellis

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1812-07-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently June 2005

4 state decisions

2018121820183018401850186018701880189019001910192019301940195019601970198019902000decided

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 →

¶1Service acknowledged 4 March, 1811.

¶2 WM. MOORE, C. HARRIS.

¶3Teste: D. MCINTIRE.

¶4Judgment confessed by the defendants in person, agreeably to the specialties filed. Any credits that shall appear on statement between the plaintiffs and William Moore to be admitted. Stay of execution six months.

¶5 WM. MOORE, C. HARRIS.

¶6Afterwards, during the week appointed by law for holding the court in April, 1811, the clerk entered up judgment agreeably to this indorsement; and when six months had expired he issued execution for the debt and costs. William Moore, one of the defendants, applied to one of the judges for a writ ofsupersedeas, and made an affidavit setting forth "that some time in the week assigned by law for holding the Superior Court in the county of Cumberland, in the spring of 1811, he and Claiborn Harris confessed a judgment before the clerk of said court to Mathews McKinnish, for the sum of £ 450 or thereabouts, with costs. That there was no Superior Court (182) holden for the county of Cumberland in the spring of that year, by reason of the indisposition of the late Judge Wright; and that he was advised the said judgment was irregular and ought to be set aside." A supersedeas was awarded, and at the next term of the court the judgment was set aside, and the plaintiffs therein appealed. *143 It cannot be seriously contended that the judgment in this case is regular and legal. What authority has the clerk to enter up judgment where there is no court? It is his business to record the proceedings of the court; but the rendering of a judgment is a judicial act, to be done by the court only. The judgment is irregular and must be set aside.

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