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52 Miss. 125

Henry v. Shepherd

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided April 15, 1876

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1876-04-15

the Circuit Court of O difax County. Hon. J. A. Orr, Judge. Plaintiff in error brought her suit in forma pauperis to the February term, 1875, of the circuit court of Colfax county, against defendant, to recover damages for the wrongful killing of chickens and other poultry, and laid her damages at $5,000. Defendant filed an affidavit to require plaintiff to give security for the costs of suit. This motion was sustained by the court, .and a rule of sixty days entered.

Cited by 2 later decisions — most recently November 1939

2 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-04-15

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Chalmers, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This suit was dismissed by the circuit judge without plaintiff being allowed to go to the jury. This action was based, and is sought to be upheld, upon two grounds: 1st, that plaintiff failed to give security for costs when thereto required upon affidavit filed; and, 2d, that the declaration did not ■disclose a just cause of action.

¶3Plaintiff commenced her suit in forma pauperis by taking the oath prescribed by § 571 of the Code. Having so commenced it, she was entitled to prosecute it to final judgment, *127and cannot be deprived of the right by a motion for security for costs, under § 572. The latter of these sections is modified and controlled by the former, or, in other words, § 571 operates as a proviso on § 572.

¶4The circuit judge had no right to dismiss the suit as showing no just cause of action. The declaration is correctly drawn. The suit was for damages sustained in the willful and wrongful Tilling, by plaintiff, of defendant’s chickens.

¶5The damages are laid at $5,000.' This claim of damage .■seems ludicrously, if not maliciously, excessive, but this will not prevent such recovery as the plaintiff may show herself ■entitled to, nor does the cause of action fall within the maxim de minimis non curat lex.

¶6The cause is reversed and remanded, and writ oí procedendo awarded.

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