## Facts

- National Packaging Corporation (National) obtained a money judgment against Michael Bolan.
- National certified the judgment in the county where Bolan owned real property, but the certification misspelled Bolan’s last name as “Bolen.”
- Elaine Belmont, Bolan’s ex-wife, filed a foreclosure action against Bolan’s property to collect unpaid child-support obligations.
- Belmont purchased the property at the sheriff’s sale in her foreclosure case.
- Because National’s judgment was recorded and indexed under the wrong name (“Bolen”), National did not receive notice of the foreclosure and did not appear to protect any claimed lien interest.
- Belmont later sold the property to Richard and Vera DeCamp.
- After the DeCamps’ purchase, National filed its own foreclosure action based on its certified judgment, claiming a judgment-lien interest in the property.
- The trial court entered summary judgment for Belmont and the DeCamps.
- National appealed, arguing that “Bolen” and “Bolan” sound the same and that the doctrine of idem sonans should treat the recording as sufficient to charge later parties with notice.

## Issues

1. Does the doctrine of idem sonans make a certified judgment recorded and indexed under a similar-sounding misspelling of the debtor’s name sufficient to give constructive notice and preserve a judgment lien against subsequent purchasers?

## Decision

- No. The court declined to apply idem sonans to the judgment-lien indexing system in this setting.
- Because the judgment was recorded and indexed under the incorrect debtor name, it did not provide constructive notice to subsequent purchasers searching under the correct spelling.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for Belmont and the DeCamps.

## Legal Principles

- A judgment lien’s effect against third parties depends on proper recording and indexing in the manner the recording system requires, including accurate identification of the debtor in name-based indexes.
- When the public index is organized by the debtor’s name and contains no reliable secondary identifiers, an entry under the wrong spelling will not ordinarily charge a purchaser with notice of the lien.
- Idem sonans will not be used to force title searchers to guess at multiple spelling variants in a name index; doing so would make routine searches uncertain and unworkable.
- The party seeking the benefit of recording (here, the judgment creditor) bears the risk of loss when its judgment is recorded or indexed under an incorrect name, rather than later purchasers who rely on standard searches.

## Conclusion

National’s certified judgment was recorded and indexed under “Bolen,” not “Bolan,” so the recording did not provide constructive notice to Belmont or the DeCamps. The court refused to treat the misspelling as harmless under idem sonans in a debtor-name indexing system and therefore affirmed summary judgment against National’s claimed judgment lien as to the property.


National Packaging Corp. v. Belmont, 547 N.E.2d 373 (1988)