Judge Jill Feeney, Case Number: 21STCV32492, Date: 2024-01-10 Tentative Ruling

Plaintiff moves to amend judgment under Code Civ. Proc., section 473(d) on the grounds that there is a clerical error with the previous judgment. Specifically, the Court declined to award prejudgment interest because a calculation of interest was not included with the documents submitted in support of the application for default judgment. However, a calculation of interest was included with Plaintiff’s declaration.

Code Civ. Proc., section 473(d) provides that the court may, upon motion of the injured party, or its own motion, correct clerical mistakes in its judgment or orders as entered, so as to conform to the judgment or order directed, and may, on motion of either party after notice to the other party, set aside any void judgment or order. It is improper to amend an order nunc pro tunc to correct judicial inadvertence, omission, oversight, or error, or show what the court might or should have done as distinguished from what a court did. (Sannmann v Department of Justice (2020) 47 CA5th 676, 683–684, quoting In re Candelario (1970) 3 Cal.3d 702, 705. [“The distinction between clerical error and judicial error is ‘whether the error was made in rendering the judgment, or in recording the judgment rendered.])

Code Civ. Proc., section 128(a)(8) provides that every court has the power to amend and control its process and orders so as to make them conform to law and justice.

“Default judgment is granted with the following changes: (1) punitive damages are not awarded as Plaintiff has not met the standard to prove that punitive damages should be awarded, has failed to provide any financial information regarding Defendants, and failed to serve statement of damages identifying the amount of punitive damages before entry of default as required by CCP 425.115 and (2) the court declines to impose prejudgment interest as the Plaintiff has not submitted the calculation required under CRC 3.1800(a)(3).”

An examination of Plaintiff’s declaration submitted with his application for default judgment reveals that a computation of pre-judgment interest based on the new damages award of $50,000 was included in paragraph 7 of the declaration.

Because the judgment entered on July 13, 2023 was based on a judicial error and not merely an error in recording the judgment, the error was not a clerical error. However, the Court is still empowered to change its own order to make it conform to law and justice. Because Plaintiff provided the required calculation of interest, the Court will change the order to include $26,250 in prejudgment interest.