95 Iowa 705 | Iowa | 1895
I. The sole question is whether the books of an abstracter of title, and the other property used in connection therewith, are exempt under our statute of exemptions, which, so far as it relates to the question under consideration, is as follows: “Code 3072. If the debtor is a resident of this state and is the head of a family, he may hold exempt from execution the following property: * * * The proper tools, instruments, or books of the debtor if a farmer, mechanic, surveyor, clergyman, lawyer, physician, teacher or professor.” If the property in question is exempt under the law, it must appear that the debtor is one of the classes of personsi named in the statute. It is averred in the petition that the plaintiff is a mechanic, and that he habitually earns his, living by compiling and arranging and making abstracts of title, and that the property in controversy consists of the necessary tools, books, and instruments by the use of which he obtains a living for himself and family. It is apparent that •the plaintiff does not come within any other class of persons named in the statute. That proposition is too plain for discussion. And, in our opinion, there is but little more reason for holding that the occupation of the plaintiff is that of a mechanic. In the common acceptation of the meaning of the word, to designate a*ni abstracter of titles' as a “mechanic” would be regarded^ toi say the least, as a very inaccurate form of speech. A mechanic is defined by Webster to be “one who works with machines or instruments; a workman or laborer other than agricultural; an artisan; an artificer; more specifically one who practices any mechanic art; one skilled or employed in shaping and uniting materials, as wood, metal, etc., into any kind of structure, machine, or other object requiring the use of tools or instruments.”