147 Mich. 53 | Mich. | 1907
The plaintiffs placed a claim against the defendant in the hands of a collection agency at Detroit for collection, who sent it to its correspondent, an attorney at Hastings, the home of defendant. He brought an action in justice’s court, but was defeated. He wrote the collection agency without delay, asking if the plaintiffs wished to take an appeal. The letter was received and opened by a lady clerk, who was temporarily acting in the absence of their correspondence clerk, and she neglected to bring the matter to the attention of the manager until a week or so after the statutory period of five days had elapsed. Subsequently the manager informed the
We need not decide whether these were circumstances beyond the control of the plaintiffs, and warranted a special appeal. It appears that the facts came to the knowledge of plaintiffs’ attorney on July 24th. The information came to the plaintiffs about August 21st. The motion was made upon a petition signed and verified by plaintiffs’ local attorney at Hastings, and was sworn to in November, 1905, notice being given to the defendant on November 4th. The affidavit of the plaintiffs was sworn to October 13th, and that of his attorney was October 24th. The clerk’s affidavit was made on October 25th. It appears, therefore, that the manager of the collection agency waited four weeks after learning of the judgment before informing the plaintiffs, and plaintiffs waited over seven weeks thereafter before making their affidavit, and three weeks more elapsed before the petition was made and filed, making a period of nearly four months between the date of the judgment and the filing of the motion, and a period of ten or eleven weeks after plaintiffs were informed of the judgment against them.
The statute [section 902, 1 Comp. Laws] limits the right to take appeals from judgments of justices of the peace to five days. We may reasonably assume that this time was made so short to prevent delays in the enforcement of justice’s court claims. The statute [section 909, 1 Comp. Laws] relieving parties who have been prevented from taking appeals by circumstances not within their control, should be considered a remedial statute, and while it should have a reasonable construction no construction should be adopted which does not take account of the evident inten
This was such laches as to preclude the relief asked. The order is affirmed.