Sanford v. Bacon

• Decision Date: 04 March 1903
• Parties: SANFORD v. BACON.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

54 A. 204

75 Conn. 541

SANFORD

v. BACON.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 4, 1903.

Appeal from city court of New Haven; Edwin C. Dow, Judge.

Action by Royal P. Sanford against Charles B. Bacon for fraud, under Gen. St. 1902, § 1099. From an order erasing the case from the docket on the ground that the writ contained no ad damnum clause, and from an order refusing to allow an amendment to the writ, plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

E. P. Arvine and Rufus M. Overlander, for appellant.

J. Birney Tuttle, for appellee.

HALL, J. The complaint, containing several counts, alleged an indebtedness of the defendant to the plaintiff of $255, and that the defendant had concealed and conveyed away certain property and rights of action to prevent them from being taken on legal process. The writ contained no other ad damnum clause than the words, "The plaintiff claims by force of the statute in such case provided $——damages." Upon the defendant's motion, the case was erased from the docket upon the ground that the court had no jurisdiction of the action; and the court refused to allow an amendment filed within 30 days after the return day of the action, showing the amount claimed in the ad damnum clause to be $400, upon the ground that the court had not the power to allow such amendment. The cases of Deveau v. Skidmore, 47 Conn. 19, and Denton v. Danbury, 48 Conn. 308, are cited as sustaining the action of the court in refusing to allow the amendment. It was held in these cases that when it appeared from the ad damnum clause, or by the absence of an ad damnum clause, that the court of common pleas, the jurisdiction of which was limited by the amount in demand, had no jurisdiction of the action, that court had no power to allow an amendment changing or stating the amount of damages demanded so that it should appear that the court had jurisdiction of the cause of action. Whether the rule as thus stated could apply to the city court of New Haven, the jurisdiction of which in all civil actions, both at law and equity, when any of the parties reside in that city, is unlimited, excepting as to certain actions concerning land outside of the city limits, we need not decide, since the law as enunciated in those cases has since been essentially changed by statute. Deveau v. Skidmore was decided in 1879, and Denton v. Danbury in 1880. In 1889 an act was passed by the Legislature which provided that "whenever in any civil action the claim for damages or the value of the matter in demand as alleged in the writ, shall by mistake be so stated that the court to which the suit is brought has no jurisdiction of the cause, such court may allow the writ to be amended as to such claims for damages or value, so as to bring the cause within the jurisdiction of the court, provided that the writ might have been drawn originally as so amended." Pub. Acts 1889, p. 61, c. 110 (Gen. St. 1902, § 643). To say that the words "whenever * * * the claim for damages * * * by mistake be so stated that the court *** has no jurisdiction," includes only those cases in which a sum below or above the jurisdictional limit of the court is claimed as damages, and not one in which the want of jurisdiction appears by a failure to state in the ad damnum clause the number of dollars claimed as damages, would be to put too strict and narrow a construction upon a remedial statute. Statutes allowing amendments should be liberally interpreted. Stuart v. Corning, 32 Conn. 105. 108. The mischief of the common law which the act was designed to cure was the want of power of a court to allow an amendment when by the absence, through mistake, of a proper statement of the claim for damages, or of the value of...