Ward v. Scott

Decided April 15, 1880

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1880-04-15

MotioN to dismiss a writ of error to the Circuit Court of Tate County for want of jurisdiction. The justice of the peace, before whom an action of trover for sixty-nine dollars damages for the conversion of a bale of cotton was brought, rendered judgment for sixty-four dollars against the defendants, N. W. Ward and others, who appealed to the Circuit Court, where a judgment for thirty-eight dollars damages and twenty dollars costs was rendered against them.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently October 1931

7 state decisions

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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Campbell, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of'the court.

¶2The amount in controversy in this case does not exceed fifty dollars. The judgment of the Circuit Court which is sought to be reversed is for less than that sum. The error complained of is, not that a sum greater than fifty dollars was claimed in the suit, but that the judgment rendered is erroneous. The matter complained of is the subject of controversy, and that is the judgment, and its amount is less than fifty dollars. The judgment could have been paid and extinguished by an amount less than fifty dollars. Where that is the case no writ of error lies to the judgment of a Circuit Court in a cáse appealed from the judgment óf a justice of the peace.' Code 1871, § 1334. Costs are not to be estimated, because they are not of the amount in controversy, but are only an incident to the controversy.

¶3Motion sustained.