State of Tennessee ex rel. Moore v. Oden (Tennessee 2019)

If a judgment is missing from a record, it can be added later nunc pro tunc as long as the evidence supports that it was properly announced and not entered due to a clerical error. The parents in this case were never married and had one child. An initial support order was set in February 2005. Subsequently, the father appeared on several contempt actions. The father filed to modify his support in 2017. It became apparent that the Father’s support was based on an order from April 2005 that was missing in the record. The mother found the order and requested the trial court enter it nunc pro tunc. The trial court did and modified the father’s support. The father appealed. He argued that entering the order nunc pro tunc wasn’t appropriate. The appellate court disagreed. It found the subsequent orders had all relied on the April 2005 support obligation. The parties assumed it was in effect. The order was missing from the record due to a mistake by the trial court or the clerk.