Stuttle v. Bowers

• Decision Date: 07 February 1884
• Citation: 2 P. 806,31 Kan. 432
• Parties: J. M. STUTTLE v. R. BOWERS
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

2 P. 806

31 Kan. 432

J. M. STUTTLE v. R. BOWERS

Supreme Court of Kansas

February 7, 1884

Error from Lyon District Court.

ACTION before a justice of the peace by Bowers against Stuttle and wife, to recover for work. June 21, 1882, judgment for plaintiff for $ 17.50 and costs against the wife, J. M Stuttle, who appealed to the district court. The plaintiff filed a motion to dismiss the appeal, on the ground that the judgment was rendered upon confession. This motion the court sustained at the November Term, 1882, and rendered judgment against defendant for costs. This ruling and judgment she brings here. Other facts appear in the opinion.

Judgment reversed and case remanded. Motion to dismiss appeal overruled.

L. B & J. M. Kellogg, for plaintiff in error.

John Allen, for defendant in error.

BREWER J. All the Justices concurring.

OPINION

BREWER, J.:

On June 21, 1882, plaintiff obtained judgment against the defendant, before a justice of the peace, for $ 17.50. On July 1, defendant duly filed an appeal bond, which bond was approved by the justice. Thereafter a transcript was filed by the justice in the district court. Subsequently plaintiff filed a motion in the district court to dismiss the appeal, on the sole ground that the judgment was rendered upon confession. The record of the district court in respect to the hearing on this motion is as follows:

"Upon the hearing of the motion to dismiss the appeal herein, filed on September 5, 1882, the defendant Mrs. Stuttle, wife of Henry Stuttle, offers to prove by H. J. Williams, the justice of the peace by whom the judgment appealed from was rendered, and other competent witnesses, that the record of the case, as shown by the transcript from the justice's docket filed herein, is not the record of the case as it was at the time the appeal bond was filed with said justice and the appeal herein perfected, in this, to wit: The words 'The defendant confessed a judgment,' now contained in said transcript from the justice's docket, were no part of the record, and were not in the said docket of the justice of the peace at the time the appeal was taken in said case; but that said words were added to the record of said case, and written in said docket by said justice, two days after said appeal bond was filed and approved and the appeal perfected, but before the said justice filed the said transcript in the district court on July 11, 1882, and while the said docket was in the possession and custody and under the control of said justice of the peace, and by Mrs. Stuttle; that said defendant, Mrs. Stuttle, did not in fact confess judgment in the case; which said offer of proof was objected to by plaintiff as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and which said objection was by the court sustained and the evidence and offer of proof rejected; to which ruling of the court the defendant, Mrs. Stuttle, then and there excepted, and the court refused to receive any oral evidence in the case, and upon the inspection of the record alone decided the motion."

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