75 Mo. App. 257 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1898
On these entries it seems clear to us that the court was authorized to make the nunc pro tunc order it did. -The court evidently intended to make an order of publication on the basis of, and to conform to the sheriff’s return on the summons, which in effect stated, at most, that defendant White was absent from the county or not to be found in his county, so that the ordinary process of law could be served on him; the return made no pretense of showing nonresidence. It is well settled that where the clerk fails to enter an order or judgment of the court, or enters such as the court did not intend, the court may, at a subsequent term even, enter the proper order or judgment nunc pro kmc, provided however that the said errors or omissions are corrected on the basis of minutes or entries shown in the records or papers of the case. Belkin v. Rhodes, 76 Mo. 643; Loring v. Groomer, 110 Mo. 632.
The order of publication which now serves the basis for the tax judgment against the defendant was, as already stated, never published in any paper. The case stands with a proper order of publication entered, but not published. As to the original order it is now as though never made. It will not do to say that the former publication of the erroneous order will answer the same purpose as the publication of the true and corrected order — that it served the place of notice to defendant as efficiently as the publication of the last or true order — for in such cases the law requires the proceedings to .conform strictly to the demands of the statute. “In all cases where constructive or substituted service is had in lieu of that which is personal, there must be a strict compliance with statutory provisions and conditions.” Charles v. Morrow, 99 Mo. 638, and the cases cited; Harness v. Cravens, 126 Mo. 233, loc. cit. 250, et seq.; State v. Horine, 63 Mo. App. 1.
In our opinion then the tax judgment against the defendant and his land should have been set aside; and the judgment herein will be reversed and cause remanded.