judgment

noun · Urteil

Urteil, and the anatomy decides where things live, § 313 ZPO, the operative order in the Tenor, the reasons in the Entscheidungsgründe. Default judgment is das Versäumnisurteil, § 331 ZPO, attacked by Einspruch, § 338 ZPO, and the machine’s Verzugsurteil confuses missing the hearing with missing a payment.

Which translation, when

Urteilthe court’s judgment, anatomised by § 313 ZPO, Rubrum, Tenor, Tatbestand, Entscheidungsgründe, the operative order living in the Tenor alone.

Versäumnisurteilthe default judgment, § 331 ZPO, with its own remedy, der Einspruch, § 338 ZPO, a two-week Notfrist, § 339 ZPO, not the Berufung.

Why

German judgments wear a fixed anatomy, § 313 Abs. 1 ZPO, and each part has a job. The Tenor, the Urteilsformel, carries the operative order and nothing else, the Tatbestand states the facts, the Entscheidungsgründe carry the reasons, and the res-judicata world keys off the Tenor, so the English hunt for the holding must split, order in the Tenor, ratio in the Gründe. The species map by function, the default judgment is das Versäumnisurteil, §§ 330, 331 ZPO for claimant and defendant default, its remedy der Einspruch within a two-week Notfrist, §§ 338, 339 ZPO, not the Berufung, the consent judgment is das Anerkenntnisurteil, § 307 ZPO, possible without any hearing, § 307 Satz 2 ZPO, and both are provisionally enforceable without security, § 708 Nr. 1 und 2 ZPO, which is why they bite faster than clients expect. The machine crossings are two, Verzugsurteil imports payment default into procedure, Standardurteil prints a form no court issues. And the everyday sense keeps its German twin honestly, nach meinem Urteil is fine German for in my judgment, the traps are court-specific.

Typical mistakes

Verzugsurteil oder Standardurteil for default judgment cross the domains, missing the hearing is Säumnis, das Versäumnisurteil, § 331 ZPO, and payment default has nothing to do with it.
The remedy is the trap inside the trap, against a Versäumnisurteil lies der Einspruch, § 338 ZPO, a two-week Notfrist, § 339 ZPO, and the Berufung filed instead arrives in the wrong doorway.
Holdings do not float, the operative order lives in the Tenor, § 313 ZPO, the carrying reasons in the Entscheidungsgründe, so quoting the judgment held from the Tatbestand cites the facts as if they were law.

What matters

Enforcement planning reads the anatomy first: the Tenor names what can be executed, provisionally enforceable without security where § 708 ZPO lists it, the Versäumnisurteil under Nr. 2, and the two-week Einspruch window of §§ 338, 339 ZPO decides whether the default judgment hardens. The memo built on a Verzugsurteil has invented a document and missed a deadline in one word.

Authority

§ 313 Abs. 1 ZPO
§§ 330, 331 ZPO
§ 338 ZPO
§ 339 ZPO
§ 307 ZPO
§ 708 Nr. 1, 2 ZPO

What the machine misses

Judgment invites two crossings in machine output, default judgment arriving as Verzugsurteil, payment default smuggled into procedure, or as Standardurteil, a form nobody prints, while the real document is das Versäumnisurteil with its own remedy and its own clock. The anatomy travels badly too, output quotes reasons as orders and orders as reasons, and the reader enforces a paragraph that was never enforceable.

Examples

default judgment	das Versäumnisurteil
judgment by consent	das Anerkenntnisurteil
the operative part of the judgment	der Tenor
to set aside the default judgment	Einspruch gegen das Versäumnisurteil einlegen