Snodgrass, &c. vs. Adams, Rockcastle, 1832

Snodgrass, &c. vs. Adams.

COURT OF APPEALS OF KENTUCKY

30 Ky. 165; 1832 Ky. LEXIS 25; 7 J.J. Marsh. 165

April 7, 1832, Decided

PRIOR HISTORY:  [**1]  Error to the Rockcastle Circuit. EVE, Judge.

DISPOSITION: Judgment affirmed with costs.

COUNSEL: E. Smith for plaintiffs; Owsley for defendants.

JUDGES: Judge NICHOLAS.

OPINION BY: NICHOLAS

OPINION

 [*165]  Judge NICHOLAS delivered the Opinion of the Court.

AT the April term, 1829, of the Rockcastle Circuit Court, the defendants tendered two pleas in bar to plaintiff's action, to which he demurred; the demurrers were joined; the pleas adjudicated on by the court and the demurrers sustained. The clerk, however, totally omitted to notice on the record the filing of the pleas, demurrers, or adjudication of them, and judgment was entered as by default on enquiring of damages. At the next term of the court these facts were abundantly proved, and the clerk in addition, stated, that before entering judgment, the pleas, &c. had been lodged with the papers in the cause, and there remained ever since. The defendants then moved that the record might be amended so as to shew the filing of the pleas, &c., which the court refused to permit. The case here depends on the propriety of this refusal.

Amendments are usually allowed in affirmance of judgments, seldom or never to destroy them III Salk. 29. After the term [**2]  at which a judgment is rendered, the court has no longer any power to alter or amend the record, unless there be something on  [*166]  the record to amend by. There is nothing of the sort here on which to found an amendment. This, like many other of the general rules of law, may no doubt operate injuriously in individual cases. But the rule is a wise one and inflexible. The general interests of society in many important particulars depend most nearly upon the preservation of the purity and verity of our public records. A rule so necessary to their inviolability cannot be made to yield for instances of individual hardship. See Conn vs. Doyle II Bibb, 248.

Judgment affirmed with costs.