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1 Wis. 511

Mitchell v. Kennedy

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided June 15, 1853

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1853-06-15

The defendant in error commenced a suit against Alexander Mitchell, the plaintiff in error, before a justice of the peace, by summons, returnable the 6th day of July, A. D. 1852. On the return day the plaintiff below appeared. The defendant did not appear, but made default. The plaintiff filed his bill of particulars, declared for work and labor, for damages $100.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1853-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently July 2022

10 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Py the Court,

Whitoít, C. J.

¶2We think this case was properly dismissed, by the court below for want of jurisdiction. The statute regulating ■ appeals from justices of the peace, (Pen. Stat. Chap. 88, § 226-227,) makes no provision for an appeal in cases of this kind, and as an appeal is strictly a statutory right, we do not see how the right can exist, except as the statute provides.

¶3We are, however, of opinion, that the judgment of the County Court, so far as it gave costs to the defendant in error, is^erroneous. It is contended that the statute authorizes the court to give costs in all cases where an appeal is dismissed, although the reason for the dismissal is a want of jurisdiction in the appellate court. But upon a consideration of the statute, we have arrived at a different conclusion ; and, as there was a total want of jurisdiction, in the County Court, so much of the judgment as gives costs to the defendant in error must be reversed. It follows, from the view we have taken of the matter, that so much of the judgment of the County Court, as dismissed the ap*513peal, is affirmed, and so muclu’of the judgment as awarded costs to the defendant in error is reversed. (See case of Jordan vs. Dennis, 7 Met R. 590,) and the eases there cited.

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