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30 Tenn. 210

Eason v. Cummins

Tennessee Supreme Court

Decided December 15, 1850

Tennessee Supreme Court · decided 1850-12-15

Eason brought an action of replevin against Cummins. There was a judgment on agreed case for the defendant; S. Anderson, Judge, presiding.

The plaintiff appealed · Decided 1850-12-15

Totten, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The action is replevin on a case agreed.

¶3The defendant, a deputy sheriff of Cannon, justifies the seisure of the property in question, under an execution against said Eason and another. This execution was issued in Cannon, in virtue of an execution certified from Wilson County, under the act 1805, ch. 66.

¶4The certificate of the clerk is defective in this, it does not state that the person before whom the judgment in Wilson, *211purports to be rendered, was “an acting justice of the peace of said county” at the time of the rendition of said judgment.

¶5This is an express and substantive requirement of the statute, authorising this peculiar proceeding. The execution properly certified under the statute, to another county, is made the basis of an execution there, against the goods and chattels of the debtor: but as it is a proceeding wholly under the statute, its material and substantial provisions must be complied with, to authorise a justice in one county to issue an execution on a judgment rendered by a justice in another county. Without the aid of the statute the execution is, of course, merely void, and it can derive no aid from the statute if its substantial provisions be not complied with. The omission in the present case, before stated, is in the most material and substantive provision in the statute. The justice in Cannon having no authority to issue the execution in the present case, it is to be considered as merely void, and as conferring no power or authority on the defendant to seize the property in question. The executions in Perry vs. Royle, 9 Yer. R. 18, and Stevenson vs. McLean, 5 Hum. R. 333, were well certified as to every matter of substance; and therefore, conferred jurisdiction upon the justice in the county to which they were sent.

¶6An officer may justify under an erroneous and voidable execution, but not under one that is void, as we deem the present to be.

¶7The judgment will therefore be reversed and rendered for the plaintiff for one cent damages and costs, under the case agreed; the property in question having been restored to the plaintiff’s possession.

¶8Judgment reversed.

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