VPRS 3584 Supreme Court Action Book (also known as Supreme Court Cause Book)

This series was used by the Ballarat Supreme Court to record details of each civil action initiated in it. The great majority of the actions initiated in this volume did not reach the trial stage as the complaint would have been withdrawn or settled beforehand. Of the cases that did go before the Court, the majority ended up in a default judgement favouring the plaintiff. (In other words, the defendant did not contest the action.)Information for each case is recorded across two successive folios (i.e 4 pages). The first folio records the action number, names of plaintiff and defendant, date summons filed, name of plaintiff's solicitor and defendant's solicitor, date of appearance, nature of action and amount of claim. The second folio is only used if the action goes before the court and will record various information about its resolution. Default judgements are clearly indentified in this folio.Part of this volume up to 1885 is indexed by VPRS 3583.