Case Name: Blake & a. v. Smith
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Hampshire
Decision Date: 1892-06
Citations: 67 N.H. 182
Docket Number: 
Parties: Blake & a. v. Smith.
Judges: Carpenter, J., did not sit: the others concurred.
Reporter: New Hampshire Reports
Volume: 67
Pages: 182–183

Head Matter:
Blake & a. v. Smith.
Service of a writ of attachment by reading it to the defendant is insufficient.
Assumpsit. The writ commanded the officer to attach the goods or estate of the defendant and to summon her. The officer attached her real estate, and returned that he summoned her “ by reading to her this writ.” The court denied a motion to dismiss for want of sufficient service, and the defendant excepted.
Drury £ Peaslee, for the plaintiffs.
Thomas Leavitt, for the defendant.

Opinion:
Allen, J.
" All writs and other processes may be served by giving to the defendant or leaving at his abode an attested copy thereof, and writs of summons and scire facias may also be served by reading the same to the defendant. . . . When the goods or estate of a person are attached, a summons in the form prescribed shall be delivered to the defendant, or left at his abode, with the name and office of the officer serving the same indorsed by him thereon." Pub. Stat., c. 219, ss. 2, 8. The writ in this case is not a writ of summons or scire facias (Pub. Stat., c. 218, ss. 16, 20), but is a writ of attachment (Pub. Stat., c. 218, s. 14), upon which the defendant's property was attached. The statute is explicit, that the service of such a writ shall be made, not by reading the writ or by giving to the defendant an attested copy, but by delivering to the defendant or leaving at his abode a summons in the form prescribed, with the name and office of the officer serving the same indorsed by him thereon. The service was insufficient.
Exceptions sustained.
Carpenter, J., did not sit: the others concurred.