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40 Minn. 388

McOmber v. Balow

Supreme Court of Minnesota

Decided April 23, 1889

Supreme Court of Minnesota · decided 1889-04-23

This action coming on for trial in the district court for Clay county, before Mills, J., on defendant’s appeal, on law and facts, from a judgment of a justice of the peace, the plaintiff was allowed, against defendant’s objection and exception, to amend the complaint so as to change his demand from $99 to $160. Defendant declined to answer, and the court on plaintiff’s motion ordered judgment for $160 against defendant, for his failure to answer.

Relies on Dewey v. Leonard · Jackson v. Covert · Dressler v. Davis

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1889-04-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently March 1914

5 state decisions

201889189019001910decided

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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Vanderburgh, J.

¶1In 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.

¶2Order affirmed.

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