Rule 77.Family Court and Clerks.

Subject to law, subdivision (a) deems the Family Court always open for filing a pleading or other proper paper, for issuing and returning process, and for making and directing interlocutory motions, orders and rules. Subdivision (b) then splits the work by setting. Unless a statute says otherwise, trials and hearings on the merits belong in open court, in a regular courtroom so far as that is practicable. Everything else a judicial officer does may be done in chambers, without the clerk or other court officials present.

Subdivision (c) sets the clerk's hours and the clerk's power. The clerk's office for each county, with a clerk or deputy clerk in attendance, stays open during business hours every day except Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays. The clerk may grant as of course the requests that need no judge: process issued after a case begins, final process to enforce and execute judgments, defaults and judgments by default, and other proceedings that do not require allowance or order of the court. That power is not final. The court may suspend or rescind what the clerk did upon cause shown.

Subdivision (d) is where most contested paperwork lands. Working from Rule 58(a)(3) and applicable statutes, any prevailing party may file a proposed judgment with a Certificate of Service under Rule 1(b)(1)(B) showing it went to every other party. If one proposed judgment is filed and nobody objects within seven days, the clerk enters it once the court approves. If a second proposed judgment arrives or anyone objects within those seven days, only the court may enter the judgment. An objection has to carry a notice of the hearing and its own certificate of service. When two or more proposed judgments on the same motion are filed inside the seven days, any prevailing party may move to enter a judgment, with notice of the hearing to all other parties.

Subdivision (e) handles geography: when a matter is set down for hearing in a county other than the one where the action is pending, the papers still go to the clerk for the county where the case is pending, and an order changing venue must direct the clerk to treat the case from then on as if it had been entered in the new county. Subdivision (f) repeats the proposed-judgment structure for written orders the court has directed someone to prepare, with several differences worth noting. Any interested party may file the proposed order, not just a prevailing party, and an objection must contain a request for a hearing rather than a notice of one. The seven days and the certificate of service are the same, and a competing filing again leaves entry to the court alone. Where subdivision (d) has the clerk enter the approved judgment, subdivision (f) has the order enter on the court's approval, and the motion to enter when two or more proposed orders compete may come from any interested party. The rule then closes by stating that the provisions of Rule 6(d) do not apply to that subparagraph.