Also known as: default judgments · default judgement · default judgements
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A judgment entered against a defendant who has failed to plead or otherwise defend against the plaintiff's claim. The judgment is limited to the kind and amount of relief demanded in the pleadings. An entry of default may be set aside for good cause or a final default judgment may be set aside under Rule 60(b).
Riverside Builders LLC sued MetroPoint Development Corp. for an unpaid $180,000 invoice and requested only that sum plus costs. MetroPoint never appeared. When Riverside later sought consequential damages and a nationwide lien in the default judgment, the court refused. It entered judgment solely for the pleaded invoice amount and costs.
Harbor Homes sued tenant Jordan for two months of unpaid rent. Jordan failed to answer and default was entered. Jordan promptly moved to set the default aside, showing reliance on an insurer and a meritorious defense that the landlord caused the loss. The court granted the motion under the good-cause standard.
The United States sued Marvin Brandt to quiet title to an abandoned railroad right-of-way crossing his land. Brandt failed to appear after proper service. The court entered default judgment declaring the United States held fee title to the strip.
In 1908 the Laramie, Hahn's Peak and Pacific Railroad obtained a 200-foot-wide right of way across public lands in Wyoming under the General Railroad Right-of-Way Act of 1875. The railroad completed construction of its line in 1911. The line later passed through several owners and was used primarily to transport timber and cattle. In 1976 the United States issued a land patent conveying an 83-acre parcel in Fox Park, Wyoming, to Melvin and Lulu Brandt. The patent conveyed to the Brandts fee simple title to the land "with all the rights, privileges, immunities, and appurtenances, of whatsoever nature, thereunto belonging, unto said claimants, their successors and assigns, forever." The patent stated that the land was granted "subject to those rights for railroad purposes as have been granted to the Laramie[,] Hahn's Peak & Pacific Railway Company, its successors or assigns." The right of way crossed approximately ten acres of the patented parcel. In 1996 the Wyoming and Colorado Railroad notified the Surface Transportation Board of its intent to abandon the right of way. After removing the tracks and ties and obtaining Board approval, the railroad completed abandonment in 2004. In 2006 the United States filed suit seeking a judicial declaration of abandonment and an order quieting title to the right of way in the Government. The complaint named the owners of 31 parcels crossed by the abandoned right of way, including Marvin Brandt who held the Fox Park parcel through a family trust. Brandt contested the claim and filed a counterclaim asserting that the right of way was a mere easement extinguished by abandonment. The district court granted summary judgment to the United States. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA newspaper defendant failed to appear in a breach-of-confidentiality action brought by a former source. The court entered default judgment against the paper for the damages alleged in the complaint.
On October 27, 1982, during the closing days of the Minnesota gubernatorial election campaign, Dan Cohen separately approached Lori Sturdevant of the Star Tribune and Bill Salisbury of the Pioneer Press Dispatch. Cohen, a political associate of IR candidate Wheelock Whitney, offered each reporter copies of two public court records concerning DFL lieutenant governor candidate Marlene Johnson: a 1969 record of three counts of unlawful assembly that were dismissed and a 1970 record of a petit theft conviction that was vacated about a year later. Cohen requested and received promises from both reporters that he would be treated as an anonymous source. His name would not appear in any material connected with the documents. The reporters would not pursue questions about his source. The reporters were experienced and covering the gubernatorial election. They knew Cohen as an active Republican associated with the Wheelock Whitney campaign and promised to keep his identity confidential, intending to honor that promise at the time it was made. Cohen also met with reporters from the Associated Press and WCCO-TV, who likewise promised anonymity and received the documents. The Associated Press published the story while honoring its promise, while WCCO-TV did not run the story. After receiving the documents, both newspapers interviewed Johnson for her explanation. The Star Tribune assigned a reporter to locate the original court records, discovering that another Whitney supporter had checked them out the previous day. Editors at both the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press Dispatch independently decided to publish the stories while identifying Cohen as the source. On October 28, 1982, both newspapers published stories about Johnson's arrests and convictions. Both articles published Cohen's name, along with denials by the regular Whitney campaign officials of any connection with the published stories. The Pioneer Press Dispatch quoted Johnson as saying the release of the information was a last-minute smear campaign. Cohen was fired from his job at a Minneapolis advertising firm the same day. The Star Tribune subsequently published a column and cartoon criticizing Cohen's tactics. Cohen sued Northwest Publications, Inc., publisher of the Pioneer Press Dispatch, and Cowles Media Company, publisher of the Star Tribune, for fraudulent misrepresentation and breach of contract. The trial court ruled that the First Amendment did not bar the claims. The jury found liability on both claims and awarded Cohen $200,000 in compensatory damages jointly and severally against the defendants plus $250,000 in punitive damages against each defendant. The court of appeals upheld the jury's finding of a breach of contract and affirmed the award of $200,000 compensatory damages. The Minnesota Supreme Court granted petitions for further review from all parties.
View caseInvestors obtained a default judgment against a farm corporation. Years later Congress passed a statute purporting to reopen such judgments. The court refused to reopen the default judgment, holding that finality prevented legislative alteration.
In 1987 petitioners filed a civil action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky against respondents. The complaint alleged that respondents had committed fraud and deceit in the sale of stock in 1983 and 1984 in violation of section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5. The District Court dismissed the action as time barred under the then-applicable Kentucky statute of limitations. While petitioners' appeal was pending in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court decided Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson on June 20, 1991. The next day the Court applied that decision to dismiss another pending appeal. The Sixth Circuit remanded petitioners' case to the District Court for further proceedings in light of Lampf. On August 13, 1991, the District Court dismissed the action with prejudice under the Lampf statute of limitations. Petitioners filed no appeal, and the judgment became final thirty days later on December 18, 1991. On December 19, 1991, the President signed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991. Section 476 of that Act added section 27A to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Subsection (b) provides that any private civil action under section 10(b) commenced on or before June 19, 1991, which was dismissed as time barred after that date and which would have been timely under the limitation period provided by the laws applicable in the jurisdiction as such laws existed on June 19, 1991, shall be reinstated on motion by the plaintiff not later than sixty days after December 19, 1991. Petitioners promptly filed a motion under section 27A(b) to reinstate their action. The District Court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA plaintiff attached corporate stock located in the forum state and sued nonresident officers. The officers failed to appear. The court entered default judgment affecting only the attached stock.
On May 22, 1974, appellee Heitner, a nonresident of Delaware who owned one share of stock in the Greyhound Corporation, filed a shareholder's derivative suit in the Court of Chancery for New Castle County, Delaware. The complaint named as defendants Greyhound Corporation, its wholly owned subsidiary Greyhound Lines, Inc., and twenty-eight present or former officers and directors of one or both corporations. Heitner alleged that the individual defendants had violated their fiduciary duties by causing the corporations to engage in activities that resulted in a private antitrust judgment of over thirteen million dollars and a criminal contempt fine of six hundred thousand dollars, both arising from events in Oregon. The individual defendants resided primarily in Arizona and conducted their business there. Simultaneously with the complaint, Heitner filed a motion for sequestration of the Delaware property of the individual defendants pursuant to Del. Code Ann., Tit. 10, § 366. The Court of Chancery granted the motion the same day and appointed a sequestrator who seized approximately eighty-two thousand shares of Greyhound common stock belonging to nineteen defendants, along with options belonging to two others and certain debentures, warrants, and stock unit credits. The stock certificates were not physically present in Delaware, but Del. Code Ann., Tit. 8, § 169 deemed the situs of ownership of all stock in Delaware corporations to be in the state, allowing the sequestrator to place stop-transfer orders on the corporation's books. The value of the sequestered stock was approximately one point two million dollars. All twenty-eight defendants received notice of the suit by certified mail to their last known addresses and by publication in a New Castle County newspaper. The twenty-one defendants whose property had been seized entered special appearances and moved to quash service of process and vacate the sequestration order. They argued that the ex parte sequestration procedure violated due process and that they lacked sufficient contacts with Delaware to sustain jurisdiction. The Court of Chancery rejected these arguments in a letter opinion, and the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in Greyhound Corp. v. Heitner, 361 A. 2d 225 (1976). The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and heard argument on February 22, 1977. The individual defendants whose property was seized became the appellants before the Court. Greyhound Corporation and its subsidiary appeared in the action and moved to dismiss on the ground that the sequestration statute was unconstitutional. The sequestration order remained in effect pending resolution of the constitutional questions presented.
View caseA default judgment must not differ in kind from or exceed in amount the relief demanded in the pleadings. The court is therefore limited to the type and sum the plaintiff actually requested.
The court may set aside an entry of default for good cause. A final default judgment may be set aside only under the standards of Rule 60(b).
A default admits well-pleaded factual allegations concerning liability. It does not admit legal conclusions or automatically entitle the plaintiff to unpled categories or amounts of damages.