Weaver v. Lammon

• Decision Date: 08 July 1886
• Citation: 62 Mich. 366,28 N.W. 905
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: WEAVER v. LAMMON.

28 N.W. 905

62 Mich. 366

WEAVER v. LAMMON.

Supreme Court of Michigan

July 8, 1886

Error to Oceana.

James Brassington, for plaintiff and appellant.

Gurney & Bickford, for defendant.

CHAMPLIN J.

Weaver brought an action of replevin before a justice of the peace against the defendant. The summons was personally served, but whether the property was seized upon the writ does not appear from the record before us. The suit was tried on the tenth of December, 1884, and the justice's docket shows that he took until Monday, the fifteenth of December to look over the testimony before giving a decision of the case. The justice's docket shows that on Monday, the fifteenth of December, he rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and against the defendant, who sued out a certiorari to the circuit court of Oceana county. In making return to this writ the justice certified that he rendered judgment on the thirteenth of December. An amended return was ordered requiring him to state specifically whether his docket showed that the cause was tried and submitted on the tenth of December, and the judgment rendered on Monday, the fifteenth of December. This order bears date the fourth of March, 1885. On May 8, 1885, the justice makes return that the suit was tried and submitted on the 10th, and the same so appears upon his docket; and that it also appears from his docket that judgment was rendered on the fifteenth day of December, 1884; but in his return to the order he says that such entry in his docket is a mistake; that he did render his judgment on the thirteenth, and, by mistake, entered it as of the fifteenth, of December, 1884. Thereupon the circuit judge reversed the judgment of the justice, and gave judgment for the defendant, against the plaintiff and his surety, for costs. The judgment as it appears entered in the docket must control. The record of his judgment in his docket cannot be contradicted by his return to the writ. Mudge v Yaple, (Mich.) 25 N.W. 298. Harrison v. Sager,

27 Mich. 476; Simonson v. Durfee, 50 Mich. 80; S.C. 14 N.W. 706; Brady v. Taber, 29 Mich. 199.

In Galloway v. Corbitt, 52 Mich. 460, S.C. 18 N.W. 218, it was said that the justice's return to certiorari must be taken as true. But this must be confined, as it was in that case, to a return as to facts and occurrences not required by the statute to be entered upon his docket, and as to those facts the docket entries are the best...