55 So. 484 | Miss. | 1911
delivered the opinion of the court.
This suit was instituted in the circuit court of Union county. The first declaration filed by appellees was jointly against the Mobile, Jackson & Kansas City Railroad Company and the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Company. The purpose of the suit was to recover the sum of three hundred twenty-nine dollars and twenty cents claimed as damage to cotton belonging to appellees and occasioned by the failure of the two railroads to transport and deliver certain shipments of cotton made by them from Ingomar to Memphis over the lines above, indicated. The damage is alleged to have been sustained both because of delay in the shipment and because of negligence in handling the cotton. It is alleged that the negligence consisted in allowing the cotton to be exposed to the weather, and that it injured and rotted some of
Section 2723, Code of 1906, provides that “justices of the peace shall have jurisdiction of all actions for the recovery of debts or damages, or personal property, where the principal of the debt, the amount of the demand, or the value of the property sought to be recovered shall not exceed two hundred dollars.” The amount of the demand in this case was not above one hundred seventy-nine dollars and twenty cents, and this, is shown by the undisputed testimony of the plaintiff himself. The case of Griffin v. McDaniel, 63 Miss. 121, is directly in point on the facts of this case, and distinguishes the cases of Fenn v. Harrington, 54 Miss. 733, and Ross v. Natchez R. R. Co., 61 Miss. 12. In the Griffin case, supra, it is held that, where the plaintiff honestly believes and contends for the recovery of a sum above the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, the circuit court has a right to entertain jurisdiction, because in such case the amount demanded is the real amount in controversy between the parties, and this fixes the jurisdiction; but where, as in this case, there is no uncertainty as to how much the plaintiff seeks to recover, it can make no difference what amount is claimed in the declaration, if in truth there is no real demand for a sum sufficient to give the circuit court jurisdiction. In short, whatever may be the allegation of damages in the declaration, if the facts in the case show beyond dispute that the sum sought to be recovered is less than two hundred dollars, and that this fact is known to plaintiff when he sues, the circuit court has no jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
Reversed and remanded.