92 F. 864 | 5th Cir. | 1899
Opinion on the Merits
On the Merits.
This suit was brought on a contract entered into between the Ambler Lumber Company and Charles Lloyd Bucki on the 28th of June, 1892, covering the delivery, during a period of eight years, of pine logs, to the amount of 1,500,000 feet, board measure, each month, with the provision that at any time within four months from the. starting up of the Bucki sawmill the quantity to be de
The Florida statute, providing for the filing of a traverse of a plaintiff’s affidavit for attachment, contains the following provision, viz.:
“If such affidavit shall traverse the debt or sum demanded, the judge may, upon application of either party, require formal pleadings as to the debt or sum demanded, to be filed in such time as he may fix, and the issue of fact, if any, raised by such pleadings shall be tried as hereinbefore provided, and at the same time as the issue, if any, made by the affidavit as to the special cause assigned in the plaintiff’s affidavit. Issues of law raised by such pleadings shall be determined and given effect to by the judge as in other controversies at law.” Rev. St Fla. § 1656.
Based upon the foregoing provision of the statute, a traverse having been filed in each case, denying the debt or sum demanded, a motion was made by the defendant for an order requiring formal pleadings as to the debt or sum demanded to be filed in each case; and the circuit court of Duval county, Fla., in each case made an order requiring such pleadings to be filed. Thereafter, in each case, the defendant presented and filed a petition for removal of the causes to the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of Florida, ^on the ground that it was a citizen of New Jersey and the plaintiff was a citizen of the state of Florida. Bonds were given and approved, and the court in each case made an order for removal. Transcripts, of the record were filed in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of Florida on October 23, 1897. On October 25j 1897, a declaration was filed by the plaintiff in suit No.
We do not find it necessary to pass upon any of the errors assigned as to the rulings on the pleadings, or as to the dissolution of the attachment, because, under the contract as construed by the trial judge (with which construction we agree), none of these rulings were prejudicial to the plaintiff in error.
The last four assignments raise the question as to the proper construction of the contract. Wc- have Already said that we concur in the construction of it announced by the trial judge. For his construction thereof and his rulings he gave reasons which fully appear in his written opinion with regard to the dissolution of the attachment, and we concur in these reasons.
As the questions raised are wholly in regard to the proper construction of the contract, and as no general principles are involved, we do not think it necessary to prepare an elaborate opinion, which, from the nature of the case, would be necessarily of great length, and involve much labor, without advantage or profit. The preliminary motions made in this case at the hearing are rendered immaterial by the disposition we make of the case. The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.
Lead Opinion
On Motion to Dismiss.
The defendant in error has made a motion to dismiss this writ of error on the ground that the judgment sought to be reviewed is a judgment dissolving a writ of attachment issued in a pending suit, and is not a final judgment within the meaning of the act of congress creating this court. 1 Supp. Rev. St. (2d Ed.) p. 901. The suit ivas commenced by plaintiff in error on the 1st day of October, 1897, by the issuance of a summons ad respond-endum in an action of assumpsit. On the same day an affidavit was filed for an attachment, on the ground that the debt was actually due, and that the defendant lumber company was about to remove its property out of the state of Florida, and was fraudulently disposing of its property, and an attachment issued. In the course of the proceedings, after much and formal pleadings in the main case, the defendant moved to dissolve the attachment on issues of fact raised upon the formal pleadings, wdiich motion was tried by the court without a jury (a jury having been waived by written stipulation), and the attachment was ordered dissolved, no decision being then reached on the merits nor any final judgment rendered in the case. From the order dissolving the attachment this writ was sued out. In Leitensdorfer v. Webb, 20 How. 176, 185, such a judgment or order is held not to be a final judgment from which a writ of error will lie; and the same case also decides that a rule in the state practice allowing appeals from orders dissolving attachments will not affect the practice in the federal courts. The question involved here seems to have been well considered and well decided in the case of Hamner v. Scott, 19 U. S. App. 639, 8 C. C. A. 655, and 60 Fed. 343, and we think the reasons and authorities there given should control our action. The writ of error is dismissed.