John Thomas Stanford v. Everett Utley, D/B/A Utley Trucking Company and E. C. Hood

BLACKMUN, Circuit Judge.

In November 1952 plaintiff Stanford instituted a diversity suit against defendants Utley and Hood in the United States District Court for the Southern Disti'ict of Mississippi. He sought damages for personal injuries to himself and for the wrongful deaths of his wife and minor son in a Mississippi motor vehicle accident. The defendants interposed an answer. Thereafter, upon advice from the defendants’ attorneys to plaintiff’s counsel that the defendants had no objection, the ease was proved as a default pursuant to Rule 55(b) (2), F.R.Civ.P. On April 25, 1956, judgment…