60 Miss. 234 | Miss. | 1882
delivered the ópinioñ of the court.
The judgment rendered by the justice of the peace on the twenty-eighth day of May, 1881, for the sum of $93 was not void. The process was shown to have been personally served on the defendant M. E. Stricklin, and W. L. Stricklin appeared and contested plaintiff’s demand. The judgment for $150.75, rendered on the twenty-fifth day of June, 1881, was void. It was a judgment by default at the return term, on service of process which is not shown to have been personal. The return was “ executed,” and while this return imports a legal service of the writ in some one of the ways provided by statute, it does not indicate whether it was personal or constructive, and it is only when it “ shall appear that the process has been served personally on the" defendant,” that a judgment by default may be entered at the return term. Code of 1880, sect. 1703. A judgment rendered in violation of the express prohibition of the statute is void. Betts v. Baxter, 58 Miss. 329. The chancellor erred in granting the relief prayed by complainant, and in sustaining the demurrer to the defendants’ cross-bill. The valid judgment for $93 was duly enrolled before the conveyances from the judgment-debtors to E. E. Brown and from E. E. Brown to complainant were filed for x-ecord. If these conveyances were bona fide,
The decree on final hearing and the decree sustaining the demurrer to the cross-bill are reversed. The demurrer is overruled and the complainant allowed thirty days after the mandate shall have been filed in the court below to answer the cross-bill.