141 Wis. 662 | Wis. | 1910
1. Jurisdiction of tbe justice is assailed be-' cause on tbe return day of tbe garnishee summons tbe execu-' tion was returned nulla bona,. No statute or bolding of this court is cited declaring any necessity for tbe execution to persist. Tbe service of tbe garnishee summons is not a seizure of property upon tbe execution, for it is only authorized in case no property can be seized. Sec. 3100, Stats. (1898). It is tbe institution of an action against tbe garnishee, to proceed like other actions. Id. It depends, under our statutes, not on any levy or seizure by virtue of tbe execution, as in some states, but on tbe absence of such levy. Seizure being not an essential to tbe jurisdiction of tbe suit, persistency of the particular execution seems in no wise necessary to tbe continuation of tbe justice’s jurisdiction to bear and decide tbe action. His custody of tbe disputed property even when turned over to him is not retained by authority of tbe execution, which runs, and gives authority, only to tbe constable or sheriff. Tbe justice’s- right rests on tbe special statute authorizing him to receive and bold tbe property when surrendered by tbe garnishee in response to tbe summons and in exoneration of tbe latter’s personal liability. See. 3Y23&, Stats. (J898). For these and other reasons we are satisfied that our statutory scheme does not contemplate the perpetuation of tbe execution by monthly renewals during tbe months or years through which the trial of questions of ownership- of tbe disclosed property may be protracted, not only before tbe justice, but, on appeal, in other courts; and therefore that no loss of jurisdiction resulted from its return malla bona.
3. Jurisdiction of the circuit court on appeal is assailed on the ground of defects in the notice of appeal. That notice, correctly addressed to the justice of the peace, entitled the action "F. A. Kremer, Plaintiff, v. Barbara Arians, Defendant,” and stated that the plaintiff appealed “from the judgment rendered in said court before you in the above-entitled action on the 8th day of March, 1909, in favor of the defendant and against the plaintiff for the sum of $105 damages and —■- dollars costs.” It is undoubtedly true that earlier decisions of this court tended to very strict and technical rules in appellate procedure. Decent decisions,, however, have much modified the technicalities, and, recognizing that the law favors appeals from the lower courts, have tended to the more rational rule that any fair and intelligible description sufficient to enable the justice from his records, and the respondent from his knowledge of the situation, to identify the judgment, from which the appeal is intended, will suffice to confer jurisdiction. The tendency of these later cases reached its culmination in Cowles v. Neillsville, 137 Wis. 384, 119 N. W. 91, wherein are collected most of the earlier ones, except Hanrahan v. Janesville, 137 Wis. 1, 118 N. W. 194. The statute (sec. 3754, Stats. 1898) requires merely presentation to the justice of a notice of appeal. The notice in question is criticised, firsts because of the title to the action wherein the impleaded claimant of the property is named as defendant. The statute provides that upon the service of the garnishee summons shall be instituted an action in which the plaintiff in the original action shall be plaintiff and the garnishee, defendant This action when originally commenced,
4. The judgment of the circuit court is assailed, first, because, as is asserted by appellant, there was no proof that
By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.