5 Mo. App. 433 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1878
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a proceeding brought originally before a justice of the peace, on Jan. 26, 1876, to recover rent and the possession of leased premises, under the Landlord and Tenant Act. The premises are described in the affidavit as “ a certain two-story brick building, situated and being No. 1505 Gratiot Street, in the Fourth Ward, in the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County,'” etc. The summons recites the tiling of
The material part of the section of the act referred to, as it read when this proceeding was brought, is as follows: “Whenever any rent has become due and payable, and payment has been demanded by the landlord or his agent from the lessee or person occupying the premises, and payment thereof has not been made, the landlord or his agent may file a statement, verified by affidavit, with any justice of the peace in the township in which the property is situated (or if the same shall be in the city of St. Louis, then with any justice of the peace in the ward in which the property is situated, or in any adjoining ward), setting forth,” etc. It appears from the affidavit in what ward the premises were situated ; but it does not appear, either from the affidavit or from any of the papers in the case, that the justice before whom the proceeding was brought was a justice of the peace in the ward in which the property was situated, or in any adjoining ward. The present is not an ordinary suit brought before a justice, but a special and summary proceeding, and must be governed by the rules which have repeatedly been declared applicable to such proceedings. Schultheis v. Nan, 4 Mo. App. 592, and cases cited. It serves no purpose to show that the premises are in a particular ward, if it be left wholly uncertain whether the justice was in a part of the county remote from that ward. We may suppose a case of an action of this kind brought
Other points are raised in the case, but as the above is decisive, they need not be noticed. The judgment must be reversed and the proceeding dismissed.