Dewey v. . Sugg

13 S.E. 923, 109 N.C. 328

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: September 5, 1891
• Status: Published

Opinion

Merrimon, C. J.

after stating the case, proceeded: The records of the Courts are very important and essential in the administration of public justice. Appropriate statutes and general principles of law, to some extent, require the Courts to make them, prescribe their purpose, where and by whom they shall be kept, and when and where they may be seen by every person interested to see them. While they are of great general utility, they import verity and constitute the highest evidence of the rights and liabilities of all persons whom they directly concern and affect, and serve to give notice and information for the use and benefit of the pub- lie in many ways, and for a variety of valuable purposes. It is, hence, essential that they should be made and kept substantially in all material respects as the law prescribes and requires. Otherwise they might fail of their purpose, and some person in some way interested must suffer detriment more or less serious.

The statute (The Code, § 83) requires the Clerks of the several Superior Courts of this State to keep certain books specified, in which entries of the records of that Court shall be made and preserved, and among them is “a Judgment Docket, in which the substance of the judgment shall be recorded, and every proceeding subsequent thereto noted.”

This distinct Judgment Docket — its nature and purpose— is prescribed, and it is required to be kept for the purposes of the Court. The law prescribes what shall be recorded on it, and everybody has notice that he may find there whatever ought to be there recorded, if indeed it exists. He is not required to look elsewhere for such matters. But he is required and bound to take notice in proper connections of what is there. The law charges him with such notice.

The statute (The Code, § 433) further prescribes and requires that “every judgment of the Superior Court, affecting the right of real property, and any judgment requiring in whole or in part the payment of money, shall be entered by the Clerk of said Superior Court on the Judgment Docket of said Court. The entry shall contain the name of the parties, and the relief granted, date of judgment and date of docketing; and the Clerk shall keep a cross-index of the whole, with the dates and numbers thereof. All judgments rendered in any county by the Superior Court thereof, during a term of the Court, and docketed during the same term, or within ten days thereafter, shall be held and deemed to have been rendered and docketed on the first day of said term.” The section requires the classes of judgments specified to be docketed on the Judgment Docket, and directs how they shall be entered. It is not simply required that they shall be docketed, but it is further, and of purpose required, that they shall be docketed substantially in the way and manner prescribed. They are to be so entered and in this way, “the entry shall contain the names of the parties, and the relief granted, date of judgment and date of docketing; and the Clerk shall keep a cross-index of the whole, with the dates and numbers thereof.” The particularity thus required as to details is not merely directory and meaningless- — -it is intended to serve a substantial purpose — that of giving information and notice as to the particulars specified, to the public — everybody interested to have such information. It would be orderly and much better that such particulars should be set forth in the order directed by the statute, still, if they appear in their substance but disorderly, from the entry, this will be sufficient. The requirement that a cross-index shall be kept is not merely directory — it is important and necessary. It is intended to enable any person to learn that there is a docketed judgment in favor of a certain party or parties, and against certain other parties, and where to find it on the docket. The inquirer is not required to look through the whole docket to learn if there be a judgment against a particular person — he must be able to learn from such index that there is a judgment against him, and where he can find it on the docket, its nature, purpose, etc. When there are several judgment debtors in a docketed judgment, the index should and must specify the name of each one, because the index as to one would not point to all or any one of the others. The purpose is, that the index shall point to a judgment against the particular person inquired about if there be a judgment on the docket against him. A judgment not thus fully docketed does not serve the purpose of the statute, and is not docketed in contemplation of law.

The statute (The Code, §434) further prescribes and requires a judgment-roll to be made up and.filed as prescribed. It further prescribes (§435) that “upon filing a judgment-roll upon a judgment affecting the title of real property, or directing in whole or in part the payment of monej’', it shall be docketed on the Judgment Docket of the Superior Court of the county where the judgment-roll was filed, and may be docketed on the Judgment Docket of the Superior Court of any other county upon filing with the Clerk thereof a transcript of the original docket, and shall be a ' lien on the real properly in the county where the same is docketed, of every person against whom any such judgment shall be' rendered, and which he may have at the time of the docketing thereof in the county in which such real property is situated, or which he shall acquire at any time thereafter, for ten years from the date of the rendition-of the judgment.”

A docketed judgment, hence, creates and secures a lien upon the judgment-debtor’s land. But a-judgment, in order to create such lien, must be docketed in the way and manner' above pointed out; otherwise, as we have seen, the judgment is not docketed, and no such or any lien arises. Holman v. Miller, 103 N. C., 118; 1 Black on Judgments, §§ 404, 406; Cumming v. Long, 16 Iowa, 41; Thomas v. Desney, 57 Ind., 58; Nye v. Moody, 70 Texas, 434; Ridgeway’s Appeal, 15 Pa. St., 117; Hamilton’s Appeal, 103 Pa. St., 368; Metz v. Bank, 7 Neb., 165.

The important statutory provisions above recited and referred to prescribe and establish a method of creating judgment liens upon real property, and they must receive such reasonable interpretation as will give strength, certainty and uniformity to that method and effectuate its purposes. This can only be done by a strict observance of at least the substance of the requirements prescribed. Otherwise uncertainty, confusion and injustice must prevail to a greater or less extent in its administration.

In the present case we think the plaintiffs’ judgment was not sufficiently docketed to create a lien upon the real property of defendant judgment-debtor, William Whitehead. The judgment entered on the Judgment Docket is informal and disorderly, but granting that it is a judgment and the entry contains sufficiently the name of the parties to it, the relief granted, the date of it, and the time of its docketing, still the index makes no mention whatever of this or any judgment against Whitehead. Any person looking on the index with a view to learn if there were a docketed judgment against him, would have found nothing whatever leading him to examine or believe there was any such judgment. Thus such person would have been misled, such a person may have been misled, numerous persons may have been misled. The law intends to prevent this, and that no such lien shall be created or exist to prejudice any person who cannot have the benefit of the means so provided to prevent prejudice thus arising. The judgment must be properly indexed as to each and all of the parties in order to create the lien. The statute expressly makes it the duty of the Clerk to make such entries, and he fails to do so at his peril.

As the plaintiffs’judgment was not effectually docketed as to the defendant Whitehead, they could not share in the fund, the proceeds of the sale of his lands, under valid process issuing upon duly docketed judgments to the prejudice of the latter.

Affirmed.