Mickler v. Reddick

Citations

• 38 Fla. 341

Syllabus

<p>1. The Clerk of a Circuit Court has no authority to enter a judgment by default for want of a plea when one in due form and sworn to is on file in the cause, and should he do so, his act would be entirely void.</p> <p>2. The limitation of sixty days in which defaults or judgments may be opened, as provided by the pleading act of 1873 (sec. 35, page 821 McClellan’s Digest) does not apply to defaults or judgments entered by a Clerk of the Circuit Court without legal authority and in violation of law.</p> <p>3. In suits at law the vendee of land who has accepted a deed with covenants of warranty and gone into possession of the land, can not defeat a recovery for the deferred payments of purchase money on the ground of a defect in the title, unless he has been induced to enter into the contract of purchase by fraud, or he has lost the land, held under the deed, by an eviction, or-that which is tantamount thereto, with liability for mesne profits.</p> <p>4. Fraud should not be alleged as a legal conclusion without a sufficient allegation of facts as a predicate.</p>