Case Title: Hart v. Catoe

Citation: 393 So. 2d 1346

Docket Number: 

State: mississippi

Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Date: 1981-02-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
393 So. 2d 1346 (1981) G.E. HART v. E.V. CATOE, Jr. No. 52244. Supreme Court of Mississippi. February 18, 1981. J.B. Van Slyke, Jr., Pope & Van Slyke, Hattiesburg, for appellant. F. Douglas Montague, III, Gray, Montague & Pittman, Hattiesburg, for appellee. EN BANC. *1347 LEE, Justice, for the Court: On December 3, 1980, we affirmed a judgment of the Forrest County Chancery Court cancelling claims of G.E. Hart to certain lands of E.V. Catoe, Jr. The appellee Catoe has filed a Motion for Five Percent (5%) Statutory Damages following affirmance. Mississippi Code Annotated Section 11-3-23 (1972)[1] provides in part as follows: The record in this case does not indicate the value of the property and the question here presented is how to arrive at such value in order to determine the five percent damages. This issue was addressed in McBride v. Burgin, 143 Miss. 596, 108 So. 811 (1926), where the Court said: The award of statutory damages in such cases is mandatory, not discretionary. Chrismond v. Chrismond, 213 Miss. 189, 56 So. 2d 482 (1952). We are of the opinion that the Motion for Five Percent Statutory Damages should be sustained and the case is remanded to the Chancery Court of Forrest County in order that the lower court may ascertain the value of the real estate involved. The judgment of this Court is that appellee E.V. Catoe, Jr. shall have of and recover from G.E. Hart and the sureties on his bond the amount of five percent (5%) damages on the value of the property so ascertained by the writ of inquiry in the lower court. MOTION FOR STATUTORY DAMAGES SUSTAINED. PATTERSON, C.J., SMITH and ROBERTSON, P. JJ., and SUGG, WALKER, BROOM, BOWLING and HAWKINS, JJ., concur. [1] The Legislature amended Section 11-3-23, effective July 1, 1980, by Chapter # 533, Miss. Gen.Laws 1291 [1980] increasing the statutory damages on affirmance to fifteen percent (15%). The Bench and Bar should take notice of such amendment.