Case ID: tenn_38/html/0436-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "McKinney, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

James Allen v. James H. Wood.
    1. Appeal. Effect of. Upon an appeal from a justice’s judgment, the cause is not before the Circuit Court for revision, as on a writ of error, but. for trial de novo upon the merits, and regardless of defects in the judgment of the justice, the Court should proceed to hear the case, and render judgment according to the merits.
    
      2. Summaey Proceedings. Judgment. Accommodation endorser. Act of 1866, ch. 75. By the act of 1866, ch. 76, the remedy by motion is given only in favor of an accommodation endorser, and a judgment by motion, under that aot, is defective unless it shows that the plaintiff is an accommodation endorser.
    
    PROM CANNON.
    The justice rendered a judgment for $90.54, upon motion, in favor of the plaintiff. The defendant appealed to the Circuit Court, Davidson, J., presiding, where, upon motion, the justice’s judgment was quashed. The plaintiff appealed in error to this Court.
    G. W. Thompson, for the plaintiff.
    J. S. Brien, for the defendant.
   McKinney, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This was a motion for judgment, before a justice, by Allen, for money paid “as endorser” of the defendant. The justice rendered judgment for the plaintiff for $90.54, from which there was an appeal.

In the Circuit Court, the defendant entered a motion to quash the justice’s judgment, which, on argument, was made absolute, and the case dismissed.

In this the Court erred. The judgment of the justice is obviously defective in not showing that the plaintiff was an accommodation endorser of the defendant; as it is only in favor of an accommodation endorser that the motion is given by the act of 1856, ch. 75.

But whether the justice’s judgment was sufficient, either as regards its form or substance, was not the question for the Court on the appeal.

The ease was before the Court not for revision, as on a writ of error, but for trial de novo on the merits; and, regardless of the defects in the justice’s judgment, the Court should have proceeded to hear the case, and render judgment according to the merits.

The judgment will be reversed, and the case be remanded for hearing on the proof.