On my Facebook page, I describe myself as “The Garth Brooks of Paperwork.” Which is a way of poking fun at lots of things about me and my job.
But, law students, please know that success as a lawyer is basically 65% being really good at paperwork.
Thankfully, for the other 35% of us, you can generally amend pleadings to correct mistakes or errors. I’ve recently found a situation where you can’t amend a court filing, such that the entire case might be dismissed.
It’s when there’s an error in your initial filing of a Notice of a Foreign Judgment under the the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act (the “Act”), found in Tennessee at Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-6-101 et.seq.
If a judgment creditor fails to attach a proper exhibit, i.e. a properly authenticated copy of the out-of-state judgment to be enforced, there is a line of cases in Tennessee that say the entire lawsuit is defective because the failure to follow the statutory procedure for authenticating a foreign judgment is fatal as a matter of law.
What’s scary about this line of cases is that there appears to be no ability to file a Motion to Amend Pleadings under Rule 15. Those types of requests are generally granted and would usually allow the plaintiff to correct the error and move on.
Not in proceedings under the Act, Tennessee Courts have said. A recent trial court decision found that a Notice of Filing was not one of the expressly provided list of “pleadings” in Rule 7.01 and, therefore, not subject to amendment under Rule 15.01.
Tenn. R. Civ. P. 15.01 allows parties to amend their pleadings, and leave to amend pleadings is freely granted by the courts when justice demands. Tenn. Rule 7.01 defines “pleading” as a complaint, answer, counter-complaint, answer to a cross-claim, a third-party complaint and third-party answer and states that “no other pleading shall be allowed.’ The Notice of Filing required by Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-6-104 is not one of the pleadings listed in Rule 7.01.
Apparently, then, the judgment creditor’s only recourse when the foreign judgment notice is defective is to dismiss the domestication action, and then re-file a corrected, new proceeding. Yikes.
Creditors Rights 101 