34 Mo. App. 624 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1889
delivered the opinion of the court.
This was intended to be an action of replevin, but failed of being an action at all, for the reasons hereinafter stated. The plaintiff began its action by filing the following affidavit: “The plaintiff states that it is the owner and lawfully entitled to the possession of the following specified property, viz : A lot of white oak staves and heading on H. H. Bedford’s land, six miles south of Essex in Stoddard county, Missouri, — about forty thousand staves, — of the value of two hundred and sixty dollars; that the same has not been seized under any process, execution, or attachment against the property of the plaintiff, but is wrongfully detained by the defendant; and that plaintiff will be in danger of losing the said property unless the same be taken out of the possession of the defendant or otherwise secured.” The affidavit was signed by T. G. Gifford, and was subscribed and sworn to by him before the clerk of the circuit court, “for and on behalf of the F. G. Oxley Stave Company.”
It is perceived that this is not a petition, but that it is an affidavit in replevin in the terms prescribed by the statute (R. S., sec. 3844), which, by the pro visions.."of such statute, the “ plaintiff may file1 at the time of the filing of his petition, or at any other time afterwards, before the rendition of the judgment in the cause.” ' It is also
This affidavit was made on the sixteenth of February, 1888. On the fourth day of the succeeding term of the circuit court of Stoddard county, namely, on the eighth day of March, 1888, the defendant filed his motion to dismiss the cause and for judgment, on the ground that the plaintiff had failed to file a petition as required by law. The court sustained this motion and the claimant excepted. A bill of exceptions recites that “ the plaintiff, before said motion was sustained, offered to file his petition in due form in said cause, which said offer was refused by the court, to which action of the court the plaintiff, by its counsel, then and there excepted. The plaintiff then moved the court for leave to file an amended petition herein, which motion
There was no error in the rulings of the circuit court. There never was any petition in court to which the statute of amendments could have any application. The affidavit was not a petition, for the reason already stated, that it contained no prayer for relief, which is an essential element of a petition under our statute. Nor was it apparently intended as a petition, but it was evidently intended merely as the statutory means to be pursued in getting possession of the property. Such an affidavit is not necessary at all in an action of replevin, but the suit may be prosecuted without it, though without it the plaintiff can not get possession of the property until after judgment has been rendered in his favor. Eads v. Stephens, 63 Mo. 90. The' affidavit is, therefore, a mere auxiliary paper designed to effect the collateral and temporary purpose of changing the possession of the property during the pendency of the action. If there is a good petition in an action of replevin, there is a ease in court without such an affidavit; and if there is no petition in such an action, there is clearly no case in court even with such an affidavit. In every case where not otherwise provided by statute, a suit is instituted in this state “by filing in the office of the clerk of the proper court a petition, setting forth the plaintiff’s cause or causes of action, and the remedy sought.” R. S., sec. 3485. Until such a petition is filed, there is no cause in court, and an intending plaintiff can not, by filing- something
The judgment will be affirmed.