Healey v. Humphrey
Opinion of the Court
This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of the United States for the district of Nevada dismissing the appellant’s bill, which he brought to enjoin the appellees from enforcing two certain judgments which had been rendered in that court. The bill alleged that on March 21, 1893, the defendant the Bullion & Exchange Bank commenced an action against the complainant and another to recover possession of certain lands situate, not in Nevada, but in California, and that the answer in the action admitted that the lands were without the state of Nevada; that judgment was thereafter rendered in favor of the plaintiff for the recovery of the possession of the land, and for the sum of $962.50, the value of the rents, issues, and profits thereof; that on said March 21,
Concerning the judgment for rents, issues, and profits of the land in the ejectment suit, we find no difficulty in concluding that, while the action of ejectment is local, and the circuit court for the district of Nevada was powerless to enter a judgment that could affect tin; possession of land in another district, yet the action with which it was joined- — the action for rents, issues, and profits of the land — -is transitory, and could be brought in the district of Nevada as well as elsewhere, and that that portion of the judgment is valid and enforceable by execution.
The second action is an action in replevin. This, at the common law. was a local action. It is made local likewise by most of the statutes of the states, by the provisions of which the venue in replevin is required to be laid in the county where the property is situate at the time of the commencement of the action. In the case before ns it appears that no question was raised of the jurisdiction, and that the parties, so far as they could do so, waived all objections to the power of the court to hear and determine the matter in issue. There is authority for holding that, if the defendant in replevin neglect to plead to the jurisdiction the fact that a local action has been laid in the wrong venue, or if he go to trial upon the merits without raising the objection, he loses the benefit thereof. 1 Chit.
“In declaring in replevin it is necessary to describe and to describe truly the locus in quo, — i. e. the close, house, or common in which the cattle or goods in question were taken by the defendant, — and as the necessity of alleging the true place of caption involves the necessity of laying the true town, parish, or village, and of course the true county, the venue and county, as well as the close, etc., are consequently material, and the action of necessity local.”
The bill does not inform us in what jurisdiction the property involved in the action of replevin was situated when taken by the defendant. For aught that appears to the contrary, it was then in the state of Nevada, and was thereafter taken by him into California. The presumption is that the court had jurisdiction, and that the judgment was valid. Evers v. Watson, 156 U. S. 527, 15 Sup. Ct. 430.
It is urged that the circuit court of the district of Nevada is powerless to enforce the judgment in the replevin action^ because the personal property which is the subject of that action is not within the reach of the process of the court, and that the alternative judgment for the money cannot be enforced until after the failure of due process to recover the personal property. This argument involves a misconception of the force and effect of the judgment in replevin. It is a judgment which demands the return of personal property, or, ia case the possession cannot be had, the payment of its value in a fixed sum. Whatever may be the right of the plaintiff generally in such a judgment to take the personal property in preference to its fixed value in cases in which the possession can be had, his option, if he have one, is certainly lost in a case in which he cannot obtain the possession, and there is nothing left him but to enforce the money judgment. But in the state of Nevada it has been held that the defendant in an action of this kind always has the right, if the property has not been delivered, to deliver it himself, and in such case it is not at the plaintiff’s option to take the property or its value. If he cannot get the property, then he may claim its value, but not otherwise. Carson v. Applegarth, 6 Nev. 189. The right, therefore, of the plaintiff in the writ to issue the execution for the adjudged money value does not depend upon his first pursuing the property upon
Reference
- Full Case Name
- HEALEY v. HUMPHREY
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- Published