Deitsch v. Wiggins
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
Most of the assignments of error have been made in total disregard of the twenty-first rule of this court. That rule is necessary to “the disposition of the business which presses upon us, and it is our intention hereafter to enforce strict compliance with its demands. If errors are not assigned in the manner required, the assignments will be treated as if not made at all, and we feel justified in passing without notice the greater number of those which are alleged to appear in this record. There are, however, some of the assignments which, though not made in full conformity with the rule, we think it is proper for us to consider.
The action was trespass “ de bonis asportatis,” and the plaintiffs in the court below averred “property” in the goods in themselves. The declaration was met by a plea of the general issue, and by a special plea alleging that the property in the goods was in O. S. Buell & Co., and that the alleged trespass consisted in a sheriff’s seizure under an attachment issued out of the District Court of Gilpin County at the suit of Deitsch & Brothers. The special plea was in some respects informal, but instead of demurring, the plaintiffs traversed its averments, and the parties went to trial on the issues thus formed. It was then a material inquiry whether the ownership of the goods was in the plaintiffs when the seizure was made, or whether it was in O. S. Buell & Co., and to that inquiry the evidence offered by the defendants, that they had belonged to Buell & Co., that during the absence of the firm from the Territory, their clerk, without authority, and in fraudulent combination with the plaintiffs’ agent, had made a sale of them to the .plaintiffs, was undoubtedly pertinent. If there was no au
The attachment should also have been received.in connection with the proof of the unauthorized and fraudulent sale. It is no sufficient objection to it that it did not itself prove all the facts necessary to constitute a complete defence. It is said the special plea averring the, attachment was bad. If so, it should have been met by a demurrer. But we think the plea contained all the averments essential to a justification, and had the facts set forth in it been established, a recovery by the plaintiffs below would have been impossible.
There are other errors apparent in the record, but as they are not properly assigned we pass them without notice.
Judgment reversed, and a venire de novo directed.
Reference
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- 1. The court calls the attention of the bar to the necessity of a strict compliance with the 21st Rule in the assignment of errors; a compliance which it declared is necessary to the disposition of the business which now “presses” upon the court. It accordingly passes without any notice at all a number of errors meant to be assigned by the plaintiff in error, but which were not assigned in the way prescribed by the said rule. 2. In an action of trespass de bonis asportatis, where the issue involves the question as to where the ownership of the property was, evidence tending directly to show that an alleged sale, which the plaintiff relied on as the basis of his action, was a fraudulent sale, is pertinent to the issue; and the rejection of it is error. 8. Evidence which, in connection with other evidence offered, tends to make out a defence, is properly receivable, though it may not itself prove all the facts necessary to constitute a defence. 4. In a suit of trespass de bonis asportatis, against C. (a sheriff) and D. (the plaintiff in a writ of attachment executed by the said sheriff), a plea contains all the averments essential to a justification when it alleges sufficiently, that the chattels mentioned in the declaration were the property of B. on the 4th of May, 1867, that on the 3d of the same May a writ of attachment was issued out of the eoyrt of a county named in favor of D., directed to the sheriff of the said county, commanding him to attach so much of the personal and real estate of said B. as should be sufficient to satisfy a sum specified;' that on the said 3d of May, the said C. was sheriff of the county named; that on the said day the writ of attachment was delivered to him to execute; and that on the 4th of said May, he levied upon the said goods and chattels as the property of the said B., by virtue of the said writ, and that these were the supposed trespasses. And this is so, even though the plea do not allege that D. was a creditor of B., nor that the attachment was otherwise regularly issued, nor that D. did the acts complained of under the direction of the sheriff, nor that the attachment had been returned. 6. However informal such a plea may be, the informality is not such as that, after a traverse of its allegations, issue, and trial, it can be taken advantage of on error. The plaintiff should have demurred.