Berger v. Saul

• Decision Date: 26 January 1900
• Parties: BERGER v. SAUL et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

34 S.E. 1036

109 Ga. 240

BERGER v. SAUL et al.

Supreme Court of Georgia

January 26, 1900

Syllabus by the Court.

Under the constitution and laws of this state, a justice's court has no jurisdiction to hear and determine an action of trover. When, however, such a case is tried in the justice's court, and an appeal entered from the judgment rendered therein, to the superior court, and a judgment in the latter is rendered in favor of the plaintiff, a motion to arrest such judgment, made at the term at which it was rendered, should have been granted, because the jurisdiction of the superior court as to the subject-matter on appeal was no larger than the jurisdiction of the justice's court in which the suit was first instituted.

Error from superior court, Fulton county; J. H. Lumpkin, Judge.

Action by J. Saul & Co. against A. Berger. Judgment for defendant. On appeal to the superior court, judgment was rendered for plaintiffs, and defendant brings error. Reversed.

T. C Crane and Jas. K. Hines, for plaintiffs in error.

Arthur Heyman, for defendant in error.

LITTLE J.

Saul & Co. instituted an action of trover, with bail, against Berger, in a justice's court in Fulton county, to recover certain articles of personal property. A verdict and judgment were rendered for the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed to the superior court. On the trial of the case in the latter court a verdict was rendered for the plaintiff, and judgment followed. At the same term the defendant moved in arrest of the judgment so rendered, on the ground that, as the justice's court had no jurisdiction over an action of bail trover, the superior court acquired no jurisdiction by appeal. The judge of the superior court overruled the motion in arrest, and ruled that a justice's court had jurisdiction in a case of bail trover; and, second, because of the time and manner of making the point. To this judgment the defendant in the court below excepted.

That a justice's court has no jurisdiction in an action of trover has been settled by the decisions of this court in the cases of Dorsey v. Miller, 105 Ga. 88, '91, 31 S.E. 736; Blocker v. Boswell (Ga.) 34 S.E. 289. Having no jurisdiction, an appeal to the superior court gave to the latter no larger jurisdiction than was possessed by the justice's court, which was none at all. Hufbauer v. Jackson, 91 Ga. 301, 18 S.E. 159; Greer v Burnam, 69 Ga. 734; Stansell v. Massey, 92 Ga 436, 17...