West Virginia Code Chapter 38. Liens § 38-3-5. Docketing abstracts of judgments; indexing; damages or penalty for failure of clerk to perform duties

The clerk of every county court shall keep in his office, in a well-bound book, a judgment docket, in which he shall docket without delay any judgment rendered by any justice of the peace or court of this State or by any court of the United States within this State, upon the delivery to him of an authenticated abstract thereof for that purpose, and the payment or tender of his fee therefor. In such docket there shall be stated, in separate columns: (a) The names in full of the plaintiff or plaintiffs, and the defendant or defendants, as they are stated in such abstract, and if it appear by such abstract that the defendants were sued as partners, their partnership name as well as their individual names shall be stated; (b) the amount of the judgment and of the costs, stating each separately; (c) the value of any specific property recovered by the judgment, and the damages (if any) for its detention; (d) the date of the judgment; (e) the court in which or the justice by whom it was rendered; (f) the date of docketing the judgment; (g) there shall also be a column for the notation of executions, if any shall be issued, upon the judgment. Every judgment, docketed by the clerk of the county court as aforesaid, shall at the same time be indexed by him in an index to be kept in or annexed to such judgment docket, such index showing the full name of the defendant, and, if more than one defendant, the full name of each, as they appear in such abstract. If the defendants are sued as partners, it shall also be indexed in the partnership name appearing in such abstract. Any clerk of a county court failing to perform any duty required of him by this section, or by section eight of this article, shall, together with the sureties in his official bond, be liable to the person injured by such failure for the amount of his injury, or such injured person may, at his option, recover fifty dollars from such clerk.