subject: Do Not Count On The Captions On Judgments [print this page] Judgment captions are the words and formatting at the upper portion on the first page on all filed court documents. Captions lists the court, the jurisdiction, the case and/or docket number, and all names of the original defendant(s) and plaintiff(s). Within the caption section near the top on the first page, there is room for the court to stamp their endorsement, when the form or document is stamped and accepted by a court.
My articles are my opinions and are not, legal advice. I am a judgment referral expert, and not a lawyer. If you ever need legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer. Almost all courts require a caption, the upper part of the first page of a document, to be partitioned to the right and left.
At the caption's top left side, is the name of the plaintiff or their lawyer representing them; and the contact info. Next, the plaintiff and defendant names, separated by a "v." The right side lists the case and/or docket number, and if known, the presiding judge's name. The remaining part of captions are usually in capital letters. Next, is the kind of court (e.g., District Court), the county and state. Most often, the last caption part, in bold and capital letters, is the action (judge or commissioner signing) which is being asked for, as an example: DECLARATION, AFFIDAVIT OF IDENTITY, Proposed ORDER, AND POINTS OF AUTHORITIES.
The names identified on the caption on judgments are not related to who owes money on judgments or how much they owe. A caption of Smith VS Jones could be on a judgment which specifies just Chang liable to pay the judgment. A caption could name six defendants and three plaintiffs, and the judgment body (somewhere) could specify only two defendants owe a single plaintiff. The caption of another judgment could list 20 plaintiffs and defendants, yet the judgment just specified that one plaintiff owe judgment money to two defendants.
Somewhere in the body of judgments is some explanation about who owes what. Most judgments are crystal clear and directly specify who owes what; or after many subtotals are listed in the body of judgments, include summaries which clearly lists what is owed by every debtor.
Certain judgments are vague, and some spread the details about what's owed into many sections on many pages without any summary. Without a clear summary of who owes how much, a lot of time can get wasted in each post-judgment recovery action. Each time, it might take hours of debate with a court clerk, and occasionally also a decision from a judge, to decide what the judgment actually meant.
Each state and court has their own rules and laws about how documents need to be formatted, including which court document captions need to include. Depending on the court and clerk, an error in a caption formatting or words, or with any other part of a court document or pleading, could result in being rejected by the court clerk. Worse than that, a mistake first accepted by a court clerk could later open the door that could let the opposite side convince a judge to dismiss your filing or motion.
