Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Michigan
i obtained a default and default judgment because the clerk mistakenly had not entered Def's answer to complaint in court records, which was filed on the last day possible. so, actually i wasn't entitled to the default judgment
no motion was made by Def to set aside the judgment. however, i did just receive a letter from the court clerk saying the judgment was being set aside due to clerical error. i believe this to be procedurally improper and legal error..
under MI court rules, the case cannot proceed if a default has been taken until it has been set aside. since the judge signed the judgment, it was, therefore, a judicial determination, i believe that he must enter an order setting aside the judgment and that if he proceeds with the case without entering such an order, it is a violation of the court rules and, therefore, legal error. this, despite the fact that the originating error was clerical.
am i right????.
1 Answer from Attorneys
No, the Court can fix its own error, and that is that it did. Even if the procedure you describe is correct, the Court would set it aside eventually because the person did answer. Tim Klisz kliszlaw.com