66 Mo. App. 117 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1896
In May, 1891, the defendants, Burrell Sisters, came from Blockton, Iowa, to Maysville, Missouri, and there engaged in the millinery business. In April, 1895, the plaintiff, a corporation doing business at St. Joseph, Missouri, brought this action to recover the price of some goods sold to Burrell Sisters, and in aid thereof, sued out an attachment and levied on the defendant’s stock of millinery at Maysville. In due season a plea in abatement was filed; there was a trial of the issues, and from a judgment sustaining the attachment, defendants have appealed.
The attachment affidavit on which the cause was tried, set up seven different grounds, including fraudulent contraction of the debt, fraudulent concealment and disposition of the property, etc., as well as the charges that defendants were nonresidents and were about to remove out of the state, with the intent to
I. It is first objected that there was no evidence to warrant the court in submitting the case to the .jury; in other words, that the court should have sustained defendant’s demurrer to the evidence. After a careful reading of the entire testimony, we find this point not well taken. There was, to say the least, some substantial evidence tending to prove that at the time the attachment was sued out the defendants were seeking to dispose of all the property they had in this state, for the avowed purpose of returning to their mother’s home in Iowa. There was, then, evidence tending to prove that defendants were about to move out of the state, with the intent to change their domicile. We do not think, however, there was any evidence to prove the allegation that, at that time, the defendants were nonresidents of the state of Missouri. It is too plain for controversy that in May, 1894, the defendants- left their mother’s home in Iowa and went to Maysville, Missouri, with the view of establishing there a residence — a permanent domicile. They did not go there for a mere temporary purpose. However, since there was evidence tending to prove that defendants were about to change this domicile and return to Iowa, and there to renew or reestablish a residence, it was proper to overrule a demurrer to the.evidence.
II. Notwithstanding the absence of any substantial evidence to prove that defendants were, at the institution of the attachment suit, nonresidents of the state, the defendants are not in a situation to complain
Following this were instructions defining residence or domicile, and declaring what plaintiff was obliged to show in order to prove nonresidence and removal of domicile. If defendants’ counsel meant to rely on the fact that there was no evidence to prove their nonresidence, they should have included this in the instruction where the other five grounds were excluded, or requested the court to so declare in another instruction. But instead of this, the jury was, at their instance,
III. We can see no just reason to complain of the court’s instructions. They fairly presented the two issues; as to the defendants’ nonresidence and whether or not they were about to move from the state. Nothing prejudicial to defendants could have resulted from giving plaintiff’s first instruction — which, in effect, told the jury that plaintiff was entitled to their verdict, if it had established any one of the grounds on which the attachment, was based — since, under defendants’ first and second instructions the jury were advised that there was no evidence tending to prove any of the seven grounds set out in the affidavit, save and except the two relating to the nonresidence of the defendants, and that they were about to remove from the state, and that these were the sole and only matters the jury had to decide.
We may also remark that the court properly instructed the jury as to the matter of residence, within the meaning of the attachment law. “Residence” and “domicile,” in the statute concerning attachment, mean practically the same. We have no need to invoke any statutory law of construction. This has been for many years the settled meaning of the word “residence” as used in the attachment law. Chariton County v. Moberly, 59 Mo. 238; Greene v. Beckwith, 38 Mo. 384.
The plaintiff’s fifth instruction, relating to the weight the jury should give the testimony of the defendants, was an unnecessary and perhaps improper comment on the evidence; but it was clearly harmless, as we think. Reading all the instructions together, as one charge from the court, they seem to us to have fairly and impartially declared the law applicable to the case.
Y. In the motion for a new trial, for the first time, the defendants made some technical objections to the sufficiency of the attachment bond. Such objections came too late. There was a bond filed at the institution of the suit, and it was duly approved by the clerk. If, then, the bond was for any reason insufficient, it was defendant’s privilege to call the court’s attention thereto and by motion require plaintiff to furnish and file another; which, if the plaintiff
YI. We are not authorized to consider the complaint to the effect that the court wrongfully restrained defendant’s counsel from discussing certain matters in the argument. These matters only appear on the face of affidavits by counsel, filed in support of the motion for new trial; there is nothing in relation thereto contained in the bill of exceptions. State v. Smith, 114 Mo. 406.
We discover no substantial error in the record and the judgment will be affirmed.