Baldwin v. Morgan

• Decision Date: 28 October 1895
• Citation: 18 So. 919,73 Miss. 276
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: E. E. BALDWIN v. T. B. MORGAN

18 So. 919

73 Miss. 276

E. E. BALDWIN v. T. B. MORGAN

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 28, 1895

FROM the circuit court of the second district of Hinds county HON. J. B. CHRISMAN, Judge.

This action was begun by the appellee by filing before a justice of the peace his affidavit, wherein he stated that he was employed by the appellant, Baldwin, during the year 1894, as a laborer; that, as such and under his employment, he assisted to make a crop of corn and hay, which yielded about two hundred bushels of corn and about fifty tons of hay which were then in possession of said appellant at a certain designated plantation in the county; that the appellant was indebted to him in the sum of $ 165.70 for wages under said contract, which he refused to pay, and that he, the affiant had a lien on said property for the recovery of his said wages. A judgment by default was taken before the magistrate and Baldwin appealed to the circuit court, where, on February 11, 1895, he filed a motion to quash the writ of seizure and dismiss the action because no itemized account of appellee's demand had been filed. On the hearing of this motion the appellee asked leave to file an itemized account of his demand. The motion to quash was overruled, and plaintiff given leave to file his account and taxed with all accrued costs. On the same day the appellant, by way of defense, filed his statement, under oath, stating, among other things, that the contract between him and appellee was a verbal one, and that, by its terms, appellee was to work for him during the year 1895, at the rate of twenty dollars per month, payable at the end of the year, except that a sufficiency thereof for appellee's necessary use should be advanced during the year. After the motion to quash the writ of seizure was overruled, the defense was confined to an effort to limit the recovery to the sum of $ 85.70, admitted to be due. There was no other evidence than the testimony of the parties litigant. Verdict and judgment for the appellee and Baldwin appealed.

Judgment affirmed.

E. E. Baldwin, pro se.

The motion to quash the writ of seizure should have been sustained, and the cause dismissed. The filing by the plaintiff of an itemized account of his demand was, under § 2684, code of 1892, a condition precedent to the issuance of the writ and the inauguration of the proceeding. His failure to comply with this requirement, therefore, renders the whole proceeding void. Ford v. Burch, 2 Smed. & M., 260; Houston v. Belcher, 12 Smed. & M., 514.

The court was without jurisdiction in consequence of the plaintiff's failure to perform this condition precedent. Coward v. Dillinger, 56 Md. 59; Clark v. Roberts, 1 Ill. 222; Erwin v. Coml. Bank, 3 La. Ann., 186.

Ben H. Wells, for the appellee.

The motion for leave to...