Michael v. Williams

California Court of Appeal Apr 10, 1936 No. Civ. 10219Published

Before: Wood

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Holding. A judgment for costs against a defendant who defaulted in a quiet title action is void as a matter of law, and therefore the court may vacate such a judgment even after the six-month statutory period has expired.

Issues

Whether a judgment for costs against a defaulting defendant in a quiet title action is void or merely erroneous.
Whether a court has jurisdiction to vacate a void judgment after the expiration of six months.

Disposition. Affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“An award of costs against a party defaulting in a quiet title action is a “grant of relief to one of the parties which the law declares shall not be granted” and is therefore void.”

“The court has power to vacate an order void upon its face at any time upon its own motion or upon motion of a party.”

[199]

WOOD, J.

Plaintiff commenced this action to quiet title against defendant Peoples Lumber Company, a corporation, and certain individual defendants. The corporation failed to answer and its default was entered February 14, 1933. The individual defendants filed an answer and cross-complaint and upon the trial plaintiff recovered judgment. The court, apparently through inadvertence, rendered judgment against all the defendants for costs in the sum of $189.05. These matters appear in the judgment roll. More than six months after entering of the judgment the defendant corporation filed a motion to be relieved from the purported judgment for costs. This motion was granted on October 17, 1934, and plaintiff appeals from this order.

It is provided in section 739 of the Code of Civil Procedure : “If the defendant in such action (quiet title) disclaim in his answer any interest or estate in the property, or suffer judgment to be taken against him without answer, the plaintiff cannot recover costs.” It is conceded that the court should not have rendered judgment for costs against the defendant corporation but plaintiff contends that after the expiration of six months from the time of entering the judgment the court was without jurisdiction to modify the judgment by relieving the corporation from the payment of costs. It is claimed that the judgment was erroneous but not void.

The position of plaintiff is not an enviable one. The order relieving defendant corporation from the effects of an unfair and illegal judgment should be sustained unless its reversal is made mandatory by clear provisions of the law. “A judgment which is void upon its face, and which requires only an inspection of the judgment roll to demonstrate its want of vitality is a dead limb upon the judicial tree, which should be lopped off, if the power so to do exists.”

(People

Greene,

74 Cal. 400 [16 Pac. 197, 5 Am. St. Rep. 448].) The court has power to vacate an order void upon its face at any time upon its own motion or upon motion of a party.

(People

Michael v. Williams

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WOOD, J.

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