Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

48 Mich. 184

Cross v. Eaton

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided April 19, 1882

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1882-04-19

<p>Setoff injustice's covH — Jurisdiction on appeal.</p> <p>The jurisdiction of the circuit court upon an appeal from a justice, is merely appellate and will not admit of enlarging the claim of either party, as that would be to make the jurisdiction original to the extent of the excess.</p> <p>Comp. L. § 5822 provides that where a defendant in justice’s court has a set-off exceeding $800, defendant shall have judgment for costs and enough shall be applied on plaintiff’s claim to satisfy it, or a judgment of discontinuance shall be entered. Held, that an appellate court can render no other judgment than the justice could have given.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · Decided 1882-04-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently February 1906

4 state decisions

20188218901900decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Marston, J.

¶1Where a case has been tried in justice’s court, and an appeal taken to the circuit, the jurisdiction of the latter is appellate. To enlarge the claim of the plaintiff or that of the defendant in the circuit court, would to that extent be original and not appellate jurisdiction.

¶2The statute in relation to set-off in justice’s court provides that if the balance found due to the defendant exceed three hundred dollars, the justice shall set off so much of the defendant’s demand against the plaintiff’s debt as shall be sufficient to satisfy it, if requested to do so by the defendant, and shall render judgment for the defendant for his *185costs; but if tbe defendant shall not require such set-off, the justice shall render judgment of discontinuance against the plaintiff with costs to the defendants. § 5322.

¶3In this case the balance found due the defendant did exceed three hundred dollars, and had the case been in justic’s court, one of two judgments must have been rendered, viz.: a judgment for the defendant for his costs, or a judgment of discontinuance against the plaintiff, with costs to defendant. On appeal no other or different form of judgment could be rendered on the main controversy, and the attempt of the circuit court to render judgment in favor of the defendant in this case for $500 was without authority. Nor can this court render any different judgment upon the finding, than the justice could have done. We cannot therefore render judgment in this court for $300 as requested.

¶4The judgment must therefore be reversed with costs of ■this court.

The other Justices concurred.
/48/mich/184 · .json · Public domain