Case ID: me_14/html/0097-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Weston C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John Spaulding, Jr. vs. James P. Harvey.
    Actions commenced before a Justice of the Peace prior to the statute of 1835, c. 178, cannot be brought from the C. C. Pleas into the S. J.. Court, in a summary way by exceptions, although the trial was had after the act passed.
    Exceptions from the Court of Common Pleas, May Term, 1835.
    The action was replevin, originally commenced before a Justice of the Peace, and before March 21, 1835. The defendant justified the taking as an officer, by virtue of a writ of attachment against the plaintiff. It was attempted to be proved on the part of the plaintiff’, that the goods replevied were exempted by law from attachment. T. P. Chandler, for the defendant, objected, that if this point were made out in evidence, that still the action of replevin would not lie; and the Court of Common Pleas sustained the objection. To this ruling, C. Gilman, for the plaintiff, excepted, and entered the action in this Court upon the exceptions.
    In this Court, T. P. Chandler, for the defendant,
    moved to dismiss the action, because exceptions will not lie in this case, the suit having been commenced before the passage of the act of 1835,' giving the right to except in such actions; and cited st. 1822, c. 193; Witham v. Pray, 2 Greenl. 198.
    
      J. Appfeton and C. Gilman, for the plaintiff,
    contended, that exceptions would lie, as the trial was after the passing of the act.
    The question raised at the C. C. Pleas was also argued by the counsel.
   The opinion of the Court was afterwards drawn up by

Weston C. J.

Until tire statute of 1835, c. 178, actions originally commenced before a Justice of the Peace, could not be brought into this Court, in a summary way upon exceptions, and that statute was made applicable only to actions thereafter to be commenced. As this suit was instituted prior to the passage of that act, we cannot sustain jurisdiction in the mode now attempted. Witham, v. Pray, 2 Greenl. 198. The case is accordingly dismissed. 
      NOTE.
      The chapters are numbered alike in the editions of the statutes published by order of the State, and by Glazier, Masters ty Smith, until the close of the year, 1831, chapter 522, when a new series is commenced in the former, and the old one continued in the latter. Those therefore, who use the edition of G. M. S., will readily find the chapter in the State edition after 1831, by subtracting 522 from the whole number.