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Minnesota Supreme Court, 1889

McOmber v. Balow

McOmber v. Balow
Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided April 23, 1889 · Vanderburgh
40 Minn. 388; 42 N.W. 83; 1889 Minn. LEXIS 103 (Minnesota Reports)

Counsel

W. B. Douglas, for appellant., 0. Mosness, for respondent.

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Citation treatment has not been reviewed for this case. The notes below come from the citation graph and the Minnesota Revisor's amendment records, not from a review of how later courts treated this decision.

(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1902, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

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McOmber v. Balow

Cases that cite this one

5 later published cases cite this decision.

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Vanderburgh, J.

In cases of appeal from justice’s court upon law and fact, the trial proceeds de novo, as if the action had been originally brought in the district court. In this case the action is upon contract, and the amount claimed to be due thereon in the justice’s court was $99. Upon the new trial in the district court, upon an appeal by the defendant, the plaintiff was allowed to amend his complaint so as to claim damages in the sum of $160. The only question presented by the bill of exceptions upon this appeal is whether the district court had jurisdiction to allow such an amendment. This question can hardly be considered an open one in this state. See Bingham v. Stewart, 14 Minn. 153, (214.) The district court had concurrent jurisdiction with the justice’s court of the cause of action in this case, and, when the case came into that court by appeal, it stood, as to all subsequent proceedings, as if originally brought there; and the power of the court to allow amendments of the character complained of is undoubtedly the same as if the action had originally *389been commenced therein. The action of the court in such cases could only be questioned in case of an abuse of discretion. The same rule prevails elsewhere under similar statutes. Dressler v. Davis, 12 Wis. 58; Palmer v. Wylie, 19 John. 276; Jackson v. Covert, 5 Wend. 139.

Order affirmed.

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.