Case ID: ri_13/html/0309-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William H. Mathews vs. Alexander Morrison.
    In replevin, judgment was given for the defendant for return and restoration and for costs, taxed at $2.20. The plaintiff appealed, and in his appeal bond described the judgment as given “ for the return and restoration of property, damages, and cost of suit (including appeal bond), taxed at $9.10.”
    
      Held, that the error in the bond did not vitiate the appeal, that the -judgment being otherwise identified, the erroneous parts of the bond could be rejected as surplusage.
    Exceptions to the Court of Common Pleas.
    This action was replevin brought in the Justice Court of the town of Lincoln. Judgment was given in favor of the defendant for return and restoration and for his costs, taxed at $2.20, from which judgment the plaintiff appealed to the Court of Common Pleas. The appeal bond described the judgment as given “for the return and restoration of property, damages, and cost of suit (including appeal bond), taxed at $9.10.”
    In tbe Court of Common Pleas, the defendant moved that the appeal be dismissed for defect in the appeal bond. The court granted the motion, and dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction, whereupon the plaintiff excepted.
    
      May 7, 1881.
    
      J. W. Mathewson, for plaintiff.
    
      Hugh J. Carroll, for defendant.
   Per Curiam.

We are of opinion that the in-

accuracies in the bond, being simply inaccuracies in the description of the judgment appealed from, which judgment is otherwise identified, are not fatal to the bond, the maxim Falsa demonstratio non noeet being applicable. Broom’s Legal Maxims, 629, 644. The words in which the error occurs can be stricken out as surplusage and the bond will be good. Llewellyn v. Earl of Jersey, 11 M. & W. 183, 189; Adler v. Potter, 57 Ala. 571, 573. See also Bennehan v. Webb, 6 Ired. 57; Cully v. Cully, 1 Hawks, 20.

The exceptions are sustained, and the case remitted to the Court of Common Pleas for trial. Exceptions sustained.