180 Iowa 281 | Iowa | 1917
There is a confusion which, to some extent, adds strength to the claim that no service was made. The return certifies that service bn the wife was made on the 23d of December, and the substituted service made by serving the wife on the 24th of December. The officer has no personal recollection on whether he made service twice, and on the 23d and 24th. He admits that, ordinarily, when he servés a notice on husband and wife, he serves both at the same time, and, while he will not be positive, he thinks he did make both services at the same time. He does remember he made two trips, but will not say whether he served the woman one day and returned and served her again, and admits that, notwithstanding the return, he may have made both services on one day. We find the probabilities to be that he went there at some time during December. 23d, when no one was at home. There was no one at home between two and five o’clock in the afternoon of December 23d. Had the officer called then, he had occasion for a second call. As he says he made the service in the evening, after the lamps were lighted, if that was the evening of the 24th, we have no occasion to go into where the Robertsons were on that day before evening of the day. On that evening, the husband arrived home about 7:30, and after that
The attorney for the plaintiff delivered to the sheriff notices and copies for the Robertsons and endorsed their address upon the copies; the sheriff went to that address. This, according to Wyland v. Frost, 75 Iowa 209, is some corroboration for the claim that service was made.
1-a
“The truth of the return is proven by the signature of the sheriff or his deputy, and the court shall take judicial notice thereof.” Code Sec. 3524.
It is elementary that public: policy requires clear and satisfactory proof, before a judgment will be set aside against the return of the sheriff that notice of suit was duly served. While in none of them the facts are exactly alike, or yet like the facts in the instant case, the following of our decisions, despite differences as to facts, establish such a rule of evidence. See Hoitt v. Skinner, 99 Iowa 360; Shehan v. Stuart, 117 Iowa 207; Ketchum v. White, 72 Iowa 193; Mosher v. McDonald, 128 Iowa 68, at 70; Miller v. Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co., 119 Iowa 41; Galvin v. Dailey, 109 Iowa 332; Farnsley v. Stillwell, 107 Iowa 631; Wyland v. Frost, 75 Iowa 209; Bowden v. Hadley, 138 Iowa 711.
We are of the opinion that an application of this rule, and a fair analysis of the testimony pro and con, aliunde the return, make it clear that the evidence was insufficient