Case ID: miss_10/html/0266-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Thacheb.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Samuel Page vs. William A. Ford.
    A bond executed by the agent of the plaintiff, in an attachment suit, binding himself individually, is a sufficient statutory bond to uphold the attachment.
    The affidavit on which a writ of attachment is to issue, is defective if it omits the words, u so that the ordinary process of the law cannot be served upon him.”
    In error, from the circuit court.of Clark county.
    An attachment was sued out of the court below, by the plaintiff in error; the affidavit .he made was in these words :
    “ Before me, Silas M. Mott, an acting justice of the peace, in and for said county, personally appeared Minor Woolley, agent of Samuel Page, and made oath that William A. Ford is justly indebted to Samuel Page in the sum of three hundred and fifty-two dollars and seventy-three cents, or thereabouts, and that the said William A. Ford is about removing out of this state, as he, this deponent, verily believes, and therefore prays an attachment at the suit of Samuel Page, against the estate of William A. Ford. Minor. Woolley.
    “ Sworn to and subscribed, before me, this the 29th day of May, A. D. 1841.
    “Silas M. Mott, J. P. Clark county.”
    
    The bond was executed by Woolley, individually, and the court below dismissed the attachment, and he prosecuted this writ of error.
    
      Jennings, for plaintiff in error.
    This suit was commenced by attachment, sued out by the agent of plaintiff. The bond was executed by the agent in his own name. A motion was made in the court below to quash the attachment, and the following reasons were assigned in writing, by the counsel for the motion. 1. Because there is no legal affidavit. 2. Because it is defective and void, oil its face. 3. Because there is not a sufficient bond ; which motion was sustained by the court, all of which appears by a bill of exceptions, signed by the judge. The reasons or grounds of the motion to quash are too vague to lead the mind to the particular defects on which the court below founded its judgment. 'Yet it is not a general motion to quash which would authorize the court to presume that there were grounds sufficient dehors the record to sustain the motion. The motion is predicated on matter of record. Are those grounds sufficient or properly stated? Ought not the defects to have been specified, especially as the party professed to specify them 1 The most plausible objection is to the execution of the bond by the agent, in his individual capacity. This is in conformity with the words of the attachment law, (Rev. Code, 160, sec. 8) and with its presumed spirit .and intention. The law is one intended for emergencies, and does not suppose that an agent would at all times be furnished with authority under seal, to execute a bond. Hence the statute authorizes the justice to take a bond “ from the party, his agent or attorney,” not surely, meaning a bond of the party by his agent, for that would be a bond of thé party as much as if executed by him in person.
   Mr. Justice Thacheb.

delivered the opinion of the court.

This case comes up by writ of error to the circuit court of Clark county.

It was an action commenced by an attachment against a removing debtor, which was dismissed by the court below, upon objections to the validity of the bond and affidavit.

The bond is executed by the agent of the plaintiff below in ■propria persona. Such a bond.is in accordance with the statutes regulating actions founded upon attachment. Bond can be taken “from the party for whom the attachment shall be issued, his or her agent or attorney,” &c. H. H. 549, sec. 13. It was ruled in the case of Frost v. Cook, Opinion Book, B. 375, that a bond executed by the agent of the plaintiff was a sufficient compliance with the statute.

But, upon looking at the affidavit on which the attachment writ in this case issued, we notice an evident error. The affidavit states, that the said William A. Ford is about removing out of this state,” without adding, “ so that the ordinary process of the law cannot be served upon him.” This addition has been pronounced essential to the validity of an affidavit in such a case, in Thompson v. Raman, Planas Sp Co., Opinion Book, 311.

An attachment is an extraordinary remedy, and is only granted by the statute, when personal notice to the defendant cannot be given, and the affidavit must distinctly set forth that impossibility.

Every attachment issued without an affidavit, as required by the statute, is declared illegal and void, and shall be dismissed. H. H. 646, s. 13.

Judgment of the court below must be affirmed.