162 P. 86 | Utah | 1916
This is a proceeding on certiorari involving the jurisdiction of a justice’s court. Wheatley, the plaintiff, brought an action in that court against the defendant, the Oregon Short Line Railroad Company, to recover damages for negligently killing live stock. In the complaint before the justice it is alleged that through the defendant’s negligence in the operation of its ears four head of plaintiff’s cattle, “of the total value of $290,” were killed “on the 11th day of December, 1915, to the damage of plaintiff in the sum of $290. Wherefore plaintiff demands judgment against, defendant for the sum of $290, and interest thereon at the rate of eight per cent, per annum from the 11th day of December, 1915, and for costs of suit.” The summons issued and served demanded damages and interest in accordance with the prayer of the complaint. The action was commenced on the 23d of June, 1916.
Our statute (C. L. 1907, Section 688) fixing the civil jurisdiction of justices’ courts provides that a justice shall have jurisdiction “in actions for damages, * * * for injury to personal property, # * * if the damages claimed be less than $300.” The justice heard the case, and in August, 1916, rendered a judgment in favor of the plaintiff “in the sum of $290, with interest at eight per cent, since December 11, 1915, and costs of court.” On an appeal to the district court a judgment was there rendered on the 28th of October, 1916, in favor of the plaintiff for “the sum of $290 with in
Thereupon these proceedings on certiorari were instituted to inquire into the court’s jurisdiction, it, in such particular, being alleged that the amount of damages claimed in the justice’s court exceeded $300, and since the justice, for that reason, had not jurisdiction of the cause, the district court acquired none on the appeal. If interest, even from the destruction of the cattle to the filing of the complaint before the justice, be allowed and added to the alleged value of the cattle, the “damages claimed,” and as prayed for in the complaint, exceeded the sum of $300. The judgment which the justice rendered included that interest, as well as accumulated interest after the filing of the complaint, which when added to the value of the cattle made the judgment in excess of $300. But the judgment which the district court rendered on the appeal did not allow any interest on the loss or any interest prior to the rendition of the judgment in the district court, and hence was less than $300.
“The ‘sum claimed’ is the test of the justice’s jurisdiction in such cases, and it may be any sum less than $300. The amount therefore claimed in the plaintiff’s complaint determines the jurisdiction of the justice, and when jurisdiction has once attached it will not be ousted by the rendition of an erroneous judgment. * * * When a justice of the peace has jurisdiction of a cause, and erroneously renders judgment in excess of his jurisdiction, such judgment may be corrected by proper proceeding before such justice, or, on appeal to the district court, it may render a proper judgment (citing cases). In the case at bar the justice erred in rendering judgment in excess of the amount authorized by statute. This was caused by including within said judgment the interest on the notes which accumulated after suit was brought. Such error did not oust the justice of juris*110 diction, because the Jurisdiction was determined by the amount claimed in the complaint, and the defendant had an adequate remedy by motion or appeal.”
Whatever may be thought of the result there reached— vacating the judgment of the district court and granting a new trial on the defendant’s appeal — the case, nevertheless, does not make for the plaintiff; for, adopting the rule there announced, that the amount claimed in the complaint determines the jurisdiction, the plaintiff here, in his complaint at the time it was filed, unlike the complaint there, claimed damages as has' been seen, in excess of $300. That excess was not due to accumulated interest, after the filing of the complaint, but to claimed interest from the injury to the filing of the complaint; and, since the claimed damages included interest due and which was demanded when the complaint was filed exceeded $300, the justice was without jurisdiction to hear or adjudicate the cause, arid so, likewise, was the district court on the appeal.
Thus, on a review of the proceedings, are we, for the reasons stated, of the opinion that neither the justice nor the district court had jurisdiction of the cause, and therefore must all the proceedings had therein and the judgment rendered in virtue thereof be annulled. Such is the order, with costs.