102 Iowa 541 | Iowa | 1897
— The petition states that the plaintiff is the owner of a sealskin cloak which the defendant George McNutt took from her residence in Des Moines on the twenty-sixth day of October, 1893', by virtue of a ■search warrant; that she acquired such ownership by purchase, and was in rightful possession of the cloak, and the defendants, wrongfully took it from her, and now wrongfully detain it from her, in Polk county; and that it is of the actual value of four hundred dollars.
I. The Newells and McNutt joined in an answer, which contained several paragraphs, the third and fourth of which were as follows:
1 “Third. Further answering, these defendants allege that so much of said cloak as is now in the possession of Mrs. V. F. Newell was acquired by her under and by virtue of an order and judgment of J. H. Maley, a j ustice of the peace in and for Polk county, Iowa, duly rendered in proceedings instituted on or about the-day of October, 1898, in the name of the state of Iowa, under chapter 50 of the Code of 1873, against the said Mrs. M. E. Haworth, as defendant; that the said Haworth appeared to said action, and pleaded thereto, and agreed to a time and place for the hearing thereof; that she resisted a motion made by the prosecution for a change of venue of said action or proceeding, and testified upon the trial,and,byher attorney, cross-examined the witnesses produced by the prosecution; that by the judgment aforesaid, Mrs. V. F. Newell was adjudged to be the lawful owner of the said cloak, and said defendant has at all times since been the owner thereof, and said judgment never having been reversed, the said Haworth is estopped by said adjudication from questioning or disputing said defendant’s title in this proceeding.
“Fourth. That the proceedings aforesaid, whereby said cloak was taken from the possession of the plaintiff, were in substantial conformity with the statute in such cases provided, and, the plaintiff having, as hereinbefore alleged, submitted herself'and the question of the ownership of said cloak, without objection, to the jurisdiction of-said Maley, justice of the peace, she is now estopped from questioning or disputing such jurisdiction in this proceeding.”
The appellee relies upon the case of State v. Williams, 61 Iowa, 517, as authorizing the action of the district court. That case involved the right of the court, against the objection of the defendant, who had been acquitted of the offense of larceny of money taken from her by search warrant, to impanel a jury, and determine the ownership of the money. This court held that the right did not exist, that the acquittal of the defendant justified the presumption that the money had not been stolen, and