Case ID: minn_46/html/0259-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Gilfillan, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ernest Koetke vs. Henry E. Ringer.
    June 3, 1891.
    Appeal from Justice of Peace — Jurisdictional Amount. — A defendant may, under Gen. St. 1878, o. 65, § 113, appeal to the district court on questions of fact, or of law and fact, where the amount claimed in the eómplaint exceeds $30, though the recovery against him be less than $15. Following Shunk v. Hellmiller, 11 Minn. 104, (164.)
    Action to recover $100 damages for trespass on plaintiff’s land, brought in justice’s court, where plaintiff had judgment for$l. Defendant appealed, on questions of law and- fact, to the district court for Faribault county, where a motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction was denied, and the action was tried before Severance, J., and a jury, and verdict rendered for defendant. Judgment was entered on the verdict, and the plaintiff appealed.
    
      G. N. Andrews and D. F. Morgan, for appellant.
    
      Quinn & Putnam, for respondent.
   Gilfillan, C. J.

Gen. St. 1878, c. 65, § 113, gives the right of appeal on questions of fact, or of law and fact, to any “person aggrieved by any judgment rendered by any justice, when the judgment exceeds fifteen dollars, or, in an action of replevin, when the value of the property, as sworn to in the affidavit, exceeds fifteen dollars, or when the amount claimed in the complaint exceeds thirty dollars.” Here are three cases. In one the right to appeal depends on the amount of the recovery alone; in another, on the sworn value of the property alone; in the third, on the amount claimed in the complaint alone. Why the statute makes the defendant’s right of appeal, in an action to recover money, depend on the amount claimed in the complaint, instead of on the amount recovered against him, we do not know; but such is the clear meaning of its terms, if, as decided by this court in Shunk v. Hellmiller, 11 Minn. 104, (164,) the last of the three cases applies to actions other than in replevin. That decision covers this case.

Judgment affirmed.