Barnes

Our task here is to harmonize Code of Civil Procedure sections 1008 and 473, subdivision (b). D.R.S. Trading Company, Inc. (D.R.S.), appeals from an order vacating a default and judgment entered against Vaughn Barnes and Elsa Barnes (the Bameses), contending that after the trial court initially denied the Bameses’ motion for relief from default, it lacked jurisdiction to hear their motion for reconsideration of that denial. D.R.S. does not challenge the merits of the court’s reconsideration decision, but instead asserts only that the court has no power to reconsider any decision under Code of Civil Procedure section 1008 (section 1008), after a judgment has been entered.

We are not persuaded. D.R.S.’s contention confuses the court’s power to reconsider the merits of the entered judgment itself—or to reconsider interim orders which have been subsumed within that judgment—with its power to reconsider an order which it is specifically authorized to make, in the first instance, after entry of the judgment under Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (b). We are unconvinced by the contention the existence of a judgment somehow precludes the court from…