Court Opinion

ID: 9834623
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 01:24:41.385351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:40.291887
License: Public Domain

On petition for rehearing:
It is urged that the distress warrant should have been quashed because of insufficient averment in the affidavit on which the warrant was based as to the contract under which the services were rendered. In support of this position reliance is placed on the case of Hedrick v. Pack, 105 W. Va. 546, wherein the court said: “The procedure (distress for rent) is in the nature of an action for the recovery of a debt in which the defendant may make legal and equitable defense and the property is held pending disposition by the court. The affidavit for the distress warrant and the warrant itself form the basis of the landlord’s action. They should be considered as the declaration of the plaintiff in the case and gov*550erned by the laws of pleading applicable to declaration in debt and assumpsit.” Whether that language may be too broad or whether the same rigidity should be applied to a dis-traint for services rendered by a workman in connection with personal property of which he retains possession, as is applied to a distraint for rent, need not now be determined, because, in any event, the averments of the affidavit under consideration are sufficiently broad to meet any reasonable requirement or expectation. It is averred that the claim is “for work and labor bestowed by him (plaintiff), and for materials and supplies furnished by him and used in connection with the manufacture of approximately 1,089,090 feet of-lumber and approximately 42,000 feet of logs, which said lumber and logs are now stacked and stored on the mill yard located near the mouth of Marsh Fork, a tributary of Blue Creek, in Elk District, Kanawha County, West Virginia, * * * (itemization follows) and “that said work and labor was bestowed by him, and the materials and supplies were furnished by him pursuant to a contract between him and the said Holston Lumber Company, * * * and that said lumber and logs were at the time of said manufacture, have been, and are now in the possession of him, the said Brit Wellman * * The warrant contains recitals covering these averments. In the light of all of which there could have been no uncertainty on the part of any party in interest as to the basis of plaintiff’s claim. In the Pack case there was uncertainty as to the nature of the alleged inheritance under which certain of the plaintiffs claimed. In the instant case there is no uncertainty. In reply to the criticism that there is no averment of a promise on the part of Holston Lumber Company to pay for the work performed and materials furnished, the answer is that such promise is implied under the contract alleged. As stated in the opinion the case centers around the dominant fact of the possession by plaintiff of the personal property against which he asserts his claims, and therefore there is not the same necessity for averment of promise of payment for services as in an action at law, predicated solely upon a supposed promise to pay money.