Case ID: mass_8/html/0134-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Curia.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ebenezer Clap versus John Guild.
    It is no sufficient ground to quash a writ of replevin, that the officer has taken bond for a larger sum than the writ directed.
    In replevin of goods, which had been attached by the defendant as a deputy sheriff, the goods were valued at 150 dollars, and the coroner was directed to execute the precept, provided the plaintiff in replevin should first give bond in the sum of three hundred dollars. But the coroner actually took a bond in the sum of 800 dollars, the plaintiff’s damage in the writ, upon which the goods were attached, having been laid at 400 dollars; and this had probably misled the coroner.
    
      S. D. Parker appeared for the defendant,
    and moved for a rule upon the plaintiff, to show cause why judgment should not be entered that the plaintiff take nothing by his writ, and a return of the goods be awarded to the defendant; because the bond was not taken according to the * command of the writ, nor pursuant to the directions of the statute. — And he argued that the writ of replevin being a conditional precept, the officer had no authority to serve it, unless the condition was legally complied with.  Nor was this a captious or merely formal objection ; for if the defendant should hereafter have occasion to bring ai> action on the bond, this very point might be made in the defence, and he might be wholly deprived of the security to which by law he is entitled.
    Harrington, for the plaintiff,
    cited the case of Morse vs. Hodsdon & Al., 
       as answering all the objections, and curing the difficulty stated for the defendant.
    
      
       3 Mass. Rep. 304, Flagg vs. Tyler. — Ibid. 310, Moors vs. Parker & Al
      
    
    
      
      
         5 Mass. Rep. 314.
    
   Curia.

We are all of opinion that this motion cannot prevail. The bond in this case, being for more than twice the value of the goods replevied, will always be subject to reduction on a hearing in equity. It was certainly sufficient to justify the officer in serving the writ of replevin; and indeed it may have been true that the defendant himself insisted on a larger bond than the writ directed, alleging that the goods were greatly undervalued in the writ. Whether this was the case or not, the bond being in too large a sum can never operate to the defendant’s injury. The service was legal, and the defendant can take nothing by his motion.