A Georgia judge can fix a clerical mistake in your divorce decree at any time. A judge cannot use that power to change what the decree decided.
The Rule
Under OCGA 9-11-60(g), “[c]lerical mistakes in judgments, orders, or other parts of the record and errors therein arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time of its own initiative or on the motion of any party.”
The words “at any time” carry the weight. As the Court of Appeals explained in Ekhorutomwen v. Jamison, 356 Ga. App. 807 (2020), “[o]rdinarily, a trial court’s power to amend or modify its judgment ends with the term in which judgment was entered.” The clerical-error rule is the narrow exception to that.
What Counts as Clerical
Ekhorutomwen describes them as “irregularities that are apparent from the face of the record or mathematical errors that are obvious from the judgment.”
Banciu v. Banciu, 282 Ga. 616 (2007), is a plain example. The decree set the husband’s support payments to begin on dates before the decree itself was entered. The Georgia Supreme Court saw “nothing in the decree to indicate that the stated commencement dates are anything other than clerical errors,” and sent the case back for the sole purpose of correcting them.
What Does Not Count
In Ekhorutomwen, a 2014 order required $160 a month in support while an attached worksheet showed $587. Years later the trial court called the $160 a scrivener’s error, raised the figure, and ordered more than $29,000 in back payments.
The Court of Appeals reversed. “OCGA ยง 9-11-60 (g) does not provide authority for making substantive changes to an order.” The order said $160 and referred to no other document, so “the $160 specified in the trial court’s order is conclusive.”
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!