Case Name: Mark W. Collet and Joseph Smith vs. Henry Smith
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1830-11
Citations: 12 N.J.L. 126
Docket Number: 
Parties: Mark W. Collet and Joseph Smith vs. Henry Smith.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 12
Pages: 145–146

Head Matter:
Mark W. Collet and Joseph Smith vs. Henry Smith.
CERTIORARI.
If a parent brings an action to recover wages due to bis daughter, he should, in his state of demand, state sufficient to shew that he is entitled to the wages for which he sues.
The state of demand before the justice was in the following words : “ The plaintiff demands of the defendants the sum of *fourteen shillings for one week’s wages due to the daughter of the plaintiff by name of Catharine Smith, and for this sum prays the judgment of this court.”
A judgment was rendered by the justice in favor of Henry Smith against the defendants below, Mark W. Collett and Joseph Smith, who thereupon brought this certiorari, and by their attorney, E. B. D. Ogden,- prayed a reversal of the judgment because the state of demand filed before the justice was insufficient. The state of demand should have shewn how the plaintiff became entitled to the wages due his daughter. It did not state that the daughter was under age,- or that the amount due the daughter had been assigned to him, nor did it in any other way shew a right in the plaintiff to maintain this action.
P. Dickerson, contra.

Opinion:
By the Court.
The state of demand is insufficient.
Let the judgment be reversed.