Case ID: iowa_38/html/0429-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Beok, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Butler v. Heeb.
    Practice: appeal from justice: default. An appeal -will lie from the judgment of a Justice of the Peace, rendered upon default.
    
      Appeal from Dubuque Circuit Court.
    
    Thursday, June 11.
    This action was originally brought before a justice of the peace who rendered judgment against defendants upon their default. Upon an appeal by the defendants to the Circuit Court the cause was dismissed, and the judgment was affirmed against defendants and their surety on the appeal bond, because default was made in the justice’s court, and judgment thereon •was there rendered. The circuit judge certified that his decision involves a question which it is desirable should be reviewed by this court. Defendants appeal.
    
      Griffith <& Knight, for appellant.
    No appearance for appellee.
   Beok, J.

— There is no statute of this State which forbids appeals from justice’s courts in cases where judgments are rendered upon default. On the contrary it is provided that “ any ¡lerson aggrieved by the final judgment of a justice may appeal therefrom.” Code, § 3575. The defendants in this case may have been aggrieved by an error in the assessment of damages, and for that reason appealed, that the judgment upon the default could be corrected by a new and true assessment. Certainly they are not deprived of such a remedy by appeal. Tire cause being in the Circuit Court, even though the defendants would be regarded as in default, it was the court’s duty to hear the evidence as upon an assessment of damages. The judgment of the justice was therefore erroneously affirmed, and the ruling of the Circuit Court is for this reason

Eeversed.