Case ID: ill-app_189/html/0412-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice Barnes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Fulton Packing Company, Appellant, v. Anton J. Cermak et al., Appellees.
    Gen. No. 19,882.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook county; the Hon. John A. Dowdall, Judge, presiding. Heard in the Branch Appellate Court at the October term, 1913.
    Affirmed.
    Opinion filed November 10, 1914.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action of replevin by Fulton Packing Company, a corporation, against Anton J. Cermak and others. On the day of the trial, an order of court was entered requiring plaintiff to produce at the trial certain books and documents pertinent to the issue. Later in the day the case came up for trial before another judge. When this order was brought to his attention by filing a copy thereof, another order of the same purport was entered requiring plaintiff to produce some of the same books and documents at two o’clock of the same day, and the hearing was continued to that time to enable plaintiff to comply with the order. At that hour, plaintiff’s counsel stated that he went to plaintiff’s plant about a mile away; that the bookkeeper was out; that he and plaintiff’s secretary made' a search for the papers called for and were unable to find any books excepting a stub check book then produced. No other explanation was given and no further time was asked for. No further information being vouchsafed as to plaintiff’s willingness or readiness to comply with the orders, the court, on defendant’s motion, discharged the jury, dismissed the case and ordered that a writ of retorno habendo issue for the property taken under the replevin writ. To reverse the judgment, plaintiff appeals.
    
      Abstract of the Decision.
    Dissmissal nonsuit and discontinuance, § 39
      
      —when suit may he dismissed on failure of plaintiff to comply with order to produce hooks. In an action of replevin, where plaintiff failed to comply with an order of the court to produce certain books and documents pertinent to the issue and made no showing of a reasonable effort or want of opportunity to do so, held that the court was justified in dismissing the suit and ordering a writ of retorno hahendo to issue.
    Henry M. Hagan, for appellant.
    Blum, Wolfsohn & Blum, for appellees.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, end Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice Barnes

delivered the opinion of the court.