36 Minn. 341 | Minn. | 1887
This action was brought against four defendants upon their joint promissory notes. Service was made upon three only, and, they having defaulted, judgment was entered against them alone by the clerk. Gren. St. 1878, c. 66, § 67, enacts that when the action is against two or more defendants jointly indebted upon a contract,
By repeated decisions of this court, the action of the clerk in entering judgment in cases of this kind is to be taken as the action of the court; and the fact that a particular entry is improper, unauthorized, and erroneous does not render the judgment entered void, any more than if it was entered under the immediate eye and direction of the court itself. Kipp v. Fullerton, supra; Reynolds v. La Crosse, etc., Co., 10 Minn. 144, (178;) Skillman v. Greenwood, 15 Minn. 77, (102;) Egan v. Sengpiel, 46 Wis. 703, 710, (1 N. W. Rep. 467;) Frankfurth v. Anderson, 61 Wis. 107, (20 N. W. Rep. 662;) White v. Crow, 110 U. S. 183, (4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 71.) A great many cases in which judgments entered by a clerk without direction of the district court have been brought before this court by appeal necessarily stand upon the correctness of this doctrine. The California courts have proceeded upon an entirely different theory as to the position of the clerk, and hence the authorities from that state are not in point with us.
The motion below to set aside the judgment in this instance was evidently based upon a notion that it was void, and not merely irregular or erroneous, and upon this notion the district judge manifestly proceeded in granting the motion. In this, as appears from what we have said, he was wrong. But, conceding that the motion included an application to set aside the judgment for irregularity or error merely,
Order reversed.