Clerical Error - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition clerical-error

Definition :

Clerical error, an error in a document which can only be explained by considering it to be a slip or mistake of the party preparing or copying it. Clerical errors in judgments or orders may be corrected by the Court or a judge under R.S.C. Ord. XXVIII., r. 11, and in awards, by the arbitrator, under the Arbitration Act, 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 49), s. 7; and for the inherent right of a Court to correct an error or supply an accidental omission, see Milson v. Carter, 1893 AC 640.

As to contracts, clerical errors have frequently been corrected by application of the maxims, Qui h'ret in litera, h'ret in cortice, or, Mala grammctica non vitiat chartam. A clerical error in a lease for ninety-four years at a yearly rent 'during the said term of ninety-one years and a quarter' was corrected by the counterpart into ninety-one years and a quarter, in Burchell v. Clark, (1876) 2 CPD 88, by a majority of the Court of Appeal; and see Spyve v. Topham, (1802) 3 East 115; and other cases showing that courts both of law and equity, where there is a manifest error in a document, will put a sensible meaning on it by reading the error as corrected.

As to Acts of Parliament clerical errors in them have usually to be corrected by subsequent Acts see the filling up of a blank in the (English) Parsonages Act, 1838 (1 Vict. c. 23, by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 29), and the substitution of a 'this' by the (English) Burial and Registration Acts (Doubts Removal) Act, 1881 (44 & 45 Vict. c. 2), for a 'that' misprinted for 'this' in s. 11 of the (English) Burial Laws Amendment Act, 1880 (43 & 44 Vict. c. 41); but in a very clear case an error will be read by a Court as corrected. See, e.g., Reg. v. Wilcock, (1845) 7 QB 321.