61 P. 431 | Or. | 1900
after stating the facts, delivered the opinion of the court.
The question presented by this appeal is whether the entry in the judgment docket of Union County afforded plaintiffs constructive notice of the judgment rendered against their grantor in Baker County, Oregon. The following statutory provisions are deemed essential to a clear understanding of the question involved. Hill’s Ann. Laws, § 569: “The records of the circuit courts are a register, journal, judgment docket, execution docket, fee book, jury book, and final record.” Section 571: “The journal is a book wherein the clerk shall enter the proceedings of the court during term time, and such proceedings in vacation as this code specially directs.” Section 572 : “The judgment docket is the book wherein judgments and decrees are docketed, as elsewhere provided in this code. Each page thereof shall be divided into eight columns, and headed as follows : Judgment Debtors; Judgment Creditors ; Amount of Judgment; Date of Entry in Journal; When Docketed ; Appeal, When Taken ; Decision on Appeal; Satisfaction, When Entered.” Section 260 : “All judgments shall be entered by the clerk in the journal, and shall specify clearly the amount to be recovered, the relief granted, or other determination of the action. * * * In the entry of all judgments, except judgments by default for want of an answer, the clerk shall be subject to the direction of the court.” Section 263 : “When judgment is given for want of an answer, the entry shall state substantially that the defendant has been duly served with the summons, and has failed to answer the complaint.” Section 264 : “When a decision has been made sustaining or overruling a demurrer, unless the party against whom the decision is made be allowed to amend or plead over, judgment shall be given
The entry in the judgment docket of Baker County is as follows, to wit:
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An inspection of this abstract of the judgment will disclose that no entry of ‘‘When Docketed” was made, as required by the provisions of Section 572, Hill’s Ann. Laws. The lien of a judgment attaches to the real property of the judgment debtor, situate in 'the county in which the judgment is given, from the date of docketing the judgment, and to his real property in other counties of the state upon filing a certified transcript of the original docket in the offices of the county clerks of the latter counties : Hill’s Ann. Laws, § 269 ; Creighton v. Leeds, 9 Or. 215; De Lashmutt v. Sellwood, 10 Or. 319; Lovelady v. Burgess, 32 Or. 418 (52 Pac. 25). As a condition precedent to securing a lien on the real property of W. W. Ellis, in Union County, Oregon, the judgment rendered against him must have been docketed in the county in which it was given, but when this was done is not discoverable from an examination of the judgment docket of Baker County ; nor can it be ascertained from an inspection of the certificate of the county clerk of said county, upon the faith of which the County Clerk of Union County entered a memorandum of said judgment in the judgment docket of the latter county. The abstract certified.to and filed in the office of the County Clerk of Union County is as follows :
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*352 State oe Oregon, County of Baker. ss.
I, E. H. Mix, county clerk of the above-named county and state, do hereby certify that the foregoing judgment has been by me compared with the original, and that the same is a correct transcript therefrom, and of the whole of such original judgment as same appears at page 48, volume I, record of circuit' court proceedings for Baker County, Oregon, in my office, and in my care and custody.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my. hand and affixed my official seal this fifth day of September, A. D. 1888.
E. H. MIX,
By ¥m. J. Eastabrook,
County Clerk.
Deputy.
ClKOTTIT COTOT SEAE.J
This memorandum having been entered in the judgment docket of Union County prior to the execution of the mortgage given by Ellis to plaintiffs, they are chargeable with such notice as the judgment docket of Union County and the transcript from Baker County afforded.
In Metz v. State Bank, 7 Neb. 165, Mr. Justice Maxwell, in speaking of the nature of a judgment docket, observes : “It is said that the docket is an index to the judgment, invented by the courts for their own ease, and the security of purchasers, to avoid the trouble and inconvenience of turning over the rolls at large. ’’ Further in the opinion, in commenting upon the duty of a purchaser of real property to examine such docket, he says: “A subsequent purchaser, however, is affected with such notice as the index entries afford; and, if they are of such a character as would induce a cautious and prudent man to make an examination, he must make such investigation, or the failure to do so will be at his peril.” The rule is general that constructive notice without search is equivalent
It is contended by defendants’ counsel, however, that, the judgment having been rendered for want of an answer, the clerk was not subject to the direction of the court, but was required to enter the judgment in the journal within the day it was given, and immediately thereafter to docket the same in the judgment docket; that the complaint alleges, and it was stipulated at the trial, that the judgment was docketed in Baker County ; and that, invoking the presumption that official duty has been regularly performed (Hill’s Ann. Laws, § 776, subd. 15), it evidences the fact that the judgment was so docketed on the day in which it was given, and, this being so, the court erred in restraining the sale of the real property to prevent a cloud on plaintiffs’ title. Whether the. failure to state in the judgment docket of Baker County the date when the judgment was docketed renders it insufficient to create a lien on any real property Ellis might have in that county, is a question the determination of which is not necessary to a decision herein. Nor is it necessary to discuss the presumptions which might be invoked in that county in aid of the record. We do not think the presumption relied upon sufficient to charge the plaintiffs with constructive, notice of more than could be discovered by an inspection of the transcript filed in Union County, and, no facts having been recited therein from which it could be inferred that the judgment was sufficient to create such lien in Baker County, it follows that the decree is affirmed.
Affirmed.