Case ID: ill_1/html/0392-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Smith, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Auditor of Public Accounts, Plaintiff, v. James Hall, late Treasurer, Defendant.
    Notice of a motion by the auditor against a delinquent treasurer must be certain and specific, and must ask for a judgment.
    This was an original suit brought in the supreme court by the auditor against James Hall, late treasurer of the state, in pursuance of the act defining the duties of auditor and treasurer, approved March 24, 1819. The notice for the motion was in the following words :
    To James Hall, late treasurer of the state of Illinois. Take notice, that before the next supreme court, to be held in Vandalia on the first Monday of December, 1831,1 shall move against you for default, in not paying over the sum of fourteen thousand eight hundred ninety-nine dollars, ninety-six cents, which was in your hands as treasurer, in January, 1831, as appears by your report to the last legislature.
    October 22,1831.
    Alfred Cowles, Circuit Attorney,
    
      For the Auditor of Public Accounts.
    
    On this notice the sheriff of Payette county made the following return : “ Delivered a copy of the within notice to James Hall, Oct. 24,1831.” •
    The defendant moved the court to dismiss the motion on the following grounds : First. The notice filed in this case does not apprize the defendant that the plaintiff will move for any judgment.
    
      Second. The motion does not specify for what the plaintiff will proceed by motion against him.
    
      Third. There is no account or other instrument or copy thereof as the foundation of the motion filed in the cause.
    
      Fourth. The motion does not lie in this case at the suit of the auditor, and the auditor has not given any notice.
    
      Cowles, state’s attorney, for plaintiff.
    
      Blackwell and McRoberts, contra.
    
      
      Laws of 1819, p. 242.
    
   Smith, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court. A majority of the court is of opinion that this motion be dismissed for insufficiency of the notice. The notice is defective in not setting forth the cause of action with sufficient certainty—no particular judgment is asked for, nor does the notice show how, or at what time defendant was indebted, nor is the reference to the report certain, to remove these objections.

Motion dismissed.