93 Iowa 520 | Iowa | 1895
The case involved less than one hundred dollars, as shown by the pleadings, and the appeal comes to ns on a certificate of the trial judge, as provided by section 3173 of the Code. The following is the statement of facts and questions of law certified by the District Court: (1) In the latter part of October, 1889, the plaintiff, being a foreign corporation doing business at St. Louis, Mo., shipped from St. Louis, Mo., to Cedar Palls, Iowa, consigned to itself, .five barrels of bottled beer, two of the barrels being identified by the mark “N,” and three by the mark “J.” This property arrived at Cedar Falls, Black Hawk county, Iowa,
On the fourth day of November the said justice caused notices of the said seizure to issue, addressed to the Peoria Bottling Company, John Doe, whose real name is unknown, and all persons whom it may concern, — one of which, by the recitals in the justice’s docket, was to be posted in the said depot, the other to be left with the owner of the said liquors, — in terms requiring them and all concerned to appear and make claim to the liquors' so seized, on the ninth day of November, 1889, at 1 o’clock p. m., and show cause, if any they have, why the said liquors should not be dealt with as provided by law. The defendant Hammond,as constable, on the fourth day of November, posted one of the notices in said freight depot, where said liquors were seized, and at the same time left the other with
There is no appearance for appellee in this court, and we are not advised upon what ground it was held the defendants were liable. It is stated in the argument of appellant that the decision was based upon the case of Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 128, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 681. It is true that the beer was seized before the passage of the act of congress commonly known as the “Wilson Law;” and it may be that, as the beer was in the custody of the railroad company, the plaintiff had the right to set up and claim that the defendants had no lawful authority to. seize and destroy the beer. But this is a collateral attack upon what appears on its face to be a regular judicial proceeding in condemnation. There is no suggestion that the proceedings were not regular. Appellee probably claimed in the court below that, as the statute authorizing the proceeding was void, the defendants are liable, because a void judgment may be attacked collaterally. It was held in Henke v. McCord, 55 Iowa, 378, 7 N. W. Rep. 623, that a “justice of the peace who enforces an ordinance which is void for want of power in the city to enact it cannot be held liable therefor in a civil action, and a ministerial officer who aids in the enforcement of such ordinance, acting under a warrant regular on its face, is protected thereby.” It appears to us that the case at bar is in principie the same. The beer in question was consigned by .the plaintiff to itself. It reached its destination, and was seized by the officers of the law on the same day. The local agent of the railroad company was duly notified of the seizure, and the case was twice continued, and the order to destroy the beer was not