Case ID: unrep-tenn-cas_1/html/0036-01.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

Porter v. Fine, Administrator.
    RETURN OP SHBRIPP. — Amendment of.
    
    An amendment will not be permitted to a sheriff’s return which is void, for insufficiency and uncertainty, when such amendment seeks to give a new and different description of the property levied upon.
    This was a motion made in the circuit court of Sevier county, to allow the sheriff to amend his return upon an execution levied upon land. The return is as follows, viz: “No goods and chattels of the defendant found in my county ; but levied this Fi. Fa. on four hundred and. seventy one acres of land lying in 5th district, adjoining the land of C. Cannon, H. M. Thomas and others ; levied on as the property of James P. H. Porter, sr., this 14th of May, 1848. J. Howard, Sh’ff.”
    The proposed amendment was to show that the land levied upon lies in Sevier county ; that it consists of four pieces adjacent to each other ; and that in part it lies in the fourth civil district of said county.
    The sale of said land by the sheriff was on the 1st of April, 1844 ; and the motion to amend was made at the December term, 1846, of said circuit court.
    The defendant in the execution died after the levy and sale, and by bis last will and testament devised all bis estate to the plaintiff in error and a younger sister.
    The amendment asked was permitted to be made, from which judgment plaintiff in error appealed.
   McKinney, J. :

In no instance can an amendment be allowed, where in effect it would be not merely to aid an informal description of the premises levied upon, though good in substance, but to give a new or different description thereof, and thereby, upon a pretext of an amendment, substitute a sufficient return for one wholly inoperative and void.

The return, standing alone, is essentially defective. The description of the premises is insufficient — the levy must show the location of the land levied upon with reasonable certainty; — the sheriff cannot resort to a presumption to supply evidence of a fact required to be shown by record evidence.

Judgment of the circuit court reversed, and the motion dismissed.