Jerry Gaucher v. Gary E. Waterhouse, Trustee of the Waterhouse Realty Trust & a.; Jerry Gaucher v. Gary Waterhouse & a. (2022)

Citation: Jerry Gaucher v. Gary E. Waterhouse, Trustee of the Waterhouse Realty Trust & a.; Jerry Gaucher v. Gary Waterhouse & a. (2022)
Parent Document: Jerry Gaucher v. Gary E. Waterhouse, Trustee of the Waterhouse Realty Trust & a.; Jerry Gaucher v. Gary Waterhouse & a. (2022)
Jurisdiction: New Hampshire (state)
Effective Date: 2022-07-20
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10271738/jerry-gaucher-v-gary-e-waterho... ↗

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2020 order entering default judgment against Kevin Waterhouse was
necessarily not final because it did not resolve the claims against all of the
defendants. See Germain v. Germain, 137 N.H. 82, 84 (1993) (explaining that,
in general, when a trial court issues an order that does not conclude the
proceeding before it, by, for example, entering judgment with respect to some,
but not all parties to the action, we consider any appeal from such an order to
be interlocutory). As such, the default judgment order was subject to the trial
court’s continuing authority to reconsider and correct the order prior to the
entry of final judgment. See Goudreault v. Kleeman, 158 N.H. 236, 249 (2009)
(“The power to reconsider an issue once decided remains in the court until final
judgment or decree.” (quotation and brackets omitted)). In its order on the
plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, the court again clarified that the “amount
of Kevin Waterhouse’s liability was never previously determined” and it
determined that that “amount is $0.00.” We conclude, therefore, that prior to
the court’s May 2021 order, no final judgment had been entered with respect to
the damages against Kevin Waterhouse for his prior default judgment.
Because the “trial court has the power to reconsider an issue until final
judgment or decree,” Radziewicz v. Town of Hudson, 159 N.H. 313, 315 (2009),
we find no error in its reconsideration of the February 2020 order.

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