each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State does not require them to be enforced if they are rendered without jurisdiction, or otherwise wanting in due process of law. This principle was so lately asserted by a decision in this court as to render unnecessary more than a reference to the consideration of the subject in Old Wayne Mutual Life Association of Indianapolis, Indiana, v. McDonough et al., decided on January 7, 1907, of the present term. 204 U. S. 8.

It is also an elementary doctrine of this court that a judgment rendered in personam against a defendant without jurisdiction of his person is not only erroneous but void. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714. And the same case holds that such judgment is not required to be enforced in another State either by the due faith and credit clause of the Constitution or the act of Congress (Rev. Stat. § 905) passed in aid thereof.

It is apparent from the statement of facts preceding this discussion that the precise question to be determined is, whether a court which has once rendered a judgment in favor of a defendant, dismissing the cause and discharging him from further attendance, may at any time after the term, and at a subsequent term, no matter how remote from the time of rendering judgment, without motion or proceeding to vacate the judgment, and without notice, set aside the judgment so rendered and render a new judgment against the defendant for the recovery of a sum of money against him.

The general principle is that judgments cannot be disturbed after the term at which they are rendered, and can only be corrected, if at all, by writ of error or appeal, or relieved against in equity in certain cases. There are, it is true, certain exceptions to the rule within which, it is the contention of the plaintiff in error, the present action is brought.

No contention is made in the brief or oral argument of counsel for plaintiff in error that the question for decision in this case is changed or modified because of the fact that terms

of court are abolished by statute in Massachusetts. The statutes of that Commonwealth, Rev. Laws, v. 2, 1382, § 24, provide for "sittings" of the Superior Court at Boston, in the county of Suffolk, for civil business, on the first Tuesdays of January, April, July and October. The exemplified copy of the record in this case shows that the case was dismissed under the general order of the court at the April sitting, 1899, on the twelfth day of June, 1899. At the October sitting, 1900, to wit, on October 18, 1900, the dismissal was stricken off for the reason stated, and on November 12, 1900, the new judgment was rendered.

In Dalton-Ingersoll Company v. Andrew J. Fiske, 175 Massachusetts, 15, the Supreme Judicial Court recited the previous cases, holding that terms no longer exist in the Superior Court, and said (p. 22): "When we had terms the practice was to enter judgment, either on the same day in the term upon motion, or, of course, on the last day. Howe, Pract. 267. Since terms have been abolished the practice is regulated by statutes and the rules of court." In the second plea it is averred, and admitted by the demurrer, that under the rules of court the dismissal became final on the first Monday of July, 1899; that is, the first Monday of the following month.

We think this rule day equivalent to the end of a term. It is the time at which, by the rules of court adopted under statutory power, the judgment became final, unless set aside for mistake within the principles to be hereinafter discussed.

Pierce v. Lamper, 141 Massachusetts, 20, was a case where a suit had been dismissed upon the call of the docket under the same rule under which the case against Karrick, defendant in error, was dismissed for want of action within the year, which order should have been followed by an entry of judgment of dismissal, in place of which the clerk simply made a docket entry "dismissed on call." The court held, since it was the duty of the clerk to have entered the dismissal, it was to be deemed in law as actually entered and a final disposition of the case; that at a subsequent term the court had

no power to vacate it, except by writ of review filed within one year under the statute.

The doctrine that a judgment is final at the term unless set aside within the exceptions for mistake seems fully recognized by other decisions in Massachusetts. Radclyffe v. Barton, 154 Massachusetts, 157, where previous cases are cited in the opinion.

At common law a writ of error coram vobis brought before the court certain mistakes of fact not put in issue or passed upon, such as the death of a party, coverture, infancy, error in process or mistake of the clerk. This writ is no longer in use, but its objects are attained by motion. Pickett v. Lergerwood, 7 Pet. 142, 147.

As in the common law writ of coram vobis, so in the proceeding by motion, after a party has been dismissed from the action by judgment he is brought again into the court by notice of the new proceeding. Ferris v. Douglass, 20 Wend. 626.

A few of the cases from this court may be noticed which support the general proposition that, at the end of the term at which judgment was rendered, the court loses jurisdiction of the cause. The principle was briefly stated by Mr. Chief Justice Waite, speaking for the court, in Brooks v. Railroad Co., 102 U. S. 107:

"At the end of the term the parties are discharged from further attendance on all cases decided and we have no power to bring them back. After that, we can do no more than correct any clerical errors that may be found in the record of what we have done."

The question underwent a full discussion. Mr. Justice Miller, delivering the opinion of the court in Bronson v. Schulten, 104 U. S. 410, on page 415, said:

"But it is a rule equally well established, that after the term has ended all final judgments and decrees of the court pass beyond its control, unless steps be taken during that term, by motion or otherwise, to set aside, modify, or correct

them; and if errors exist, they can only be corrected by such proceeding by a writ of error or appeal as may be allowed in a court which, by law, can review the decision. So strongly has this principle been upheld by this court, that while realizing that there is no court which can review its decisions, it has invariably refused all applications for rehearing made after the adjournment of the court for the term at which the judgment was rendered. And this is placed upon the ground that the case has passed beyond the control of the court. Brooks v. Railroad Company, 102 U. S. 107; Public Schools v. Walker, 9 Wall. 603; Brown v. Aspden, 14 How. 25; Cameron v. McRoberts, 3 Wheat. 591; Sibbald v. United States, 12 Pet. 488; United States v. The Brig Glamorgan, 2 Curt. C. C. 236; Bradford v. Patterson, 1 A. K. Marsh. (Ky.) 464; Ballard v. Davis, 3 J. J. Marsh. (Ky.) 656."

In discussing the exceptions to this rule for the correction of judgment by writ of error coram vobis, or motion now substituted for the old practice, the only one which has application here is error in the process through the default of the clerk.

We are unable to find in the present record any clerical mistake. The entry of action during the year upon the bill of exceptions appears to have been duly entered upon the minutes of the court; the clerk made no mistake about it. The court erroneously rendered a judgment, believing that no action had been taken, but this was not through mistake or oversight of the clerk within the meaning of the rule. The judgment intended to be entered by the court was, in fact, entered, through misapprehension it is true; but nothing was left out which the court intended to make a matter of record.

In Hickman v. Fort Scott, 141 U. S. 415-418, there was a petition to correct by new findings the special findings of fact upon which the court had rendered a judgment at a former term, which findings, it was averred, had been omitted, some unavoidably and others accidentally; but the application was overruled and error was prosecuted to this court, which,

speaking through Mr. Justice Harlan, said: "The judgment was the one the court intended to enter, and the facts found were those only which the court intended to find. There is here no clerical mistake. Nothing was omitted from the record of the original action which the court intended to make a matter of record. The case, therefore, does not come within the rule that a court, after the expiration of the term, may, by an order nunc pro tunc, amend the record by inserting what had been omitted by the act of the clerk or of the court. In re Wight, Petitioner, 134 U. S. 136, 144; Fowler v. Equitable Trust Company 141 U. S. 384; Galloway v. McKeithen, 5 Iredell (Law), 12; Hyde v. Curling, 10 Missouri, 227."

This case from 10 Missouri was quoted with approbation also in the case of In re Wight, Petitioner, 134 U. S. 136, 145, as follows: "A court has power to order entries of proceedings had by the court at a previous term to be made nunc pro tunc, but where the court has omitted to make an order which it might or ought to have made it cannot at a subsequent term be made nunc pro tunc."

In the case In re Wight this court approved an order of the Circuit Court of the United States putting in the record at a subsequent term an order which was made at a previous term of the court, remanding the case to the District Court. "A clerical error, as its designation imports, is an error of a clerk or subordinate officer in transcribing or entering an official proceeding ordered by another." Marsh v. Nichols, Shepard & Co., 128 U. S. 605, 615.

Of another alleged exception to the general rule of finality of judgments, counsel for plaintiff in error says, after conceding the general rule that jurisdiction is lost after the lapse of the term at which judgment is rendered:

"But a well known exception to this general rule is that a judgment of dismissal based upon a mistake or inadvertence, such as appears in this record, can be set aside after the term, and that is the proposition with which this court is concerned in this case. The reason is that jurisdiction is not lost by a