Consent Judgment and Judgment by Admission

One judge is very particular about terminology,
and all the lawyers learned from her court that a Judgment by Admission is not a Consent Judgment.

Some fresh lawyers may have been confused into thinking that in her court, one can ONLY say “Judgment by Admission” as their seniors must have warned them about this “particular judge”.

This morning, we have a Consent Judgment but the Plaintiff’s lawyer called it a Judgment by Admission… and I thought, “uh oh!”.

The judge went, “A judgment by Admission of Claim?”
I quickly stood up and said, “Your honor, it’s a Consent Judgment”.

Then later, another lawyer stood up for her case, hers is really a Judgment by Admission, but she must have thought since just now the other lawyer was corrected to “Consent Judgment”, she quickly corrects herself saying it’s a Consent Judgment!

Actually, there’s a difference between the two.

Judgment by Admission is when the Defendant is present in the court at the first mention and admits to the claim as stated in your Statement of Claim and is not defending the matter. As such, Defendant has to pay the entire amount as claimed.

Consent Judgment is when both parties agreed to a settlement sum, which is most probably a lesser amount compared to what the Plaintiff has initially claimed in the Statement of Claim. Thus a “judgment by consent” will be entered against the Defendant for the payment of the amount in accordance with the consented amount.