I finally got the default judgment from the judge and went to the county records department to record it. The clerk took one look at it and handed it back saying, “this needs a judicial seal”.

“Judicial seal? Don’t they know that at the courthouse? Does this happen very often?”

“Sometimes.”

I returned to the courthouse, waited another half hour for a clerk and learned that I needed to apply for the form with the judicial seal. That’s when I noticed that the Defendant’s name had been inverted. So the clerk said, “Oh, it doesn’t matter really.”

“But, this won’t be properly recorded at county for searching.”

“Yeah, probably so,” she nodded.

“Well, then how do I correct it?”

“You have to file a motion,” and she handed me a document that was the result of many generations of photocopying. And then I noticed that my name on the Plaintiffs line had also been misspelled. Who’s in charge here, I wondered. All the other documents in the file were correct.

With the motion filled out, I asked her how I would be getting the document with the judicial seal.

“You’ll need to come pick it up.”

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve been here to get this judgment? Is there any way you could mail it to me.”

She recognized the inconvenience and told me she’d mail it when she got the corrected document back from the judge’s administrator, probably the next day.

That was on May 2, exactly two weeks ago, and I have yet to receive my judgment with a judicial seal. Our government at work.