To the Hon. W. D. Barnes, Judge of Said Circuit:
Your petitioners, Lewis & Bro., a mercantile firm composed of H. H. Lewis and Wm. A. Lewis, and the defendants in the above stated cause now pending in the Jackson Circuit Court, and Mrs. Callie H. Lewis respectfully showeth unto your Honor, First: That they are residents, citizens of Jackson County, Florida. That on the 1st day of October, A. D. 1892, the said Lewis & Bro. executed to the said Mrs. Callie H. Lewis a chattel mortgage on a stock of merchandise in their store house in the town of Greenwood, in said county, to secure an indebted
Your petitioners further show unto your Honor that on the 7th day of October, 1892, S. Waxelbaum & Son of Macon, Ga., and A. G. Levy & Co. of Mobile, Ala., procured writs of attachment issued by Frank Phillips, Clerk of the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Florida, against Lewis & Bro. That said attachments were levied by A. Scott as Sheriff of said County on said stock of merchandise to satisfy an indebtedness claimed by them in their affidavits of $5,461.00 dollars, besides the costs of Court, that said levy was executed as aforesaid, on the 7th day of October, A. D. 1892.
Your petitioners further show unto your Honor that on the 24th day of October, 1892, your petitioner Mrs. Callie H. Lewis executed and filed with the Clerk of said Court (Frank Phillips) her claim affidavits, and with the Sheriff aforesaid her claim bonds aggregating 5800.00 dollars, whereupon the Sheriff aforesaid released and turned over to your petitioner Callie H. Lewis the stock of merchandise aforesaid. That at the same time that the attachments were issued, or within one or two days thereafter, and before the claim of your petitioner was instituted in the said Court, that S. Waxelbaum & Son instituted their suit of replevin for a portion of the same goods that had been levied upon by said A. G. Levy & Co., and that the same amounting to about $800.00 dollars were turned over to their possession, and in turn were with
Your petitioners further show unto your Honor, that on .the 18th day of October, 1892, and since that time* The Standard Guano and Chemical Manufacturing Company, a corporation under the laws of Louisiana, had procured and issued out of the same Court by the said Frank Phillips as Clerk aforesaid two (2) attachments against the said Lewis & Bro. as aforesaid. That Barney Cavanaugh Hardware Company, a corporation under the laws of Alabama, had procured attachments out of the same Court issued by said Clerk, and against said Lewis & Bro. That T. G. Bush & Co., a mercantile firm composed of T. G. Bush, J. S: Knight and R. F. Neville, of Mobile, Ala., procured out of the same Court, by said same Clerk aforesaid writs of attachment against said same Lewis & Bro. That Lowenstein Bros., a mercantile firm composed of Marcus Lowenstein and Louis Lowensteinhad also procured attachments issued out of said Court by said Clerk against your petitioners Lewis & Bro>. as aforesaid. That all the above last named attachments had issued out of the Circuit Court of Jackson Co>., returnable to the November term thereof, since the 18th day of October, 1892, and since your petitioner Mrs. Callie H. Lewis had replevied the stock of merchandise which had been levied upon under the first named attachments as .the property of Lewis & Bro.
Your petitioners further show that on the 18th day of October, A. D. 1892, that A. Scott as Sheriff, aforesaid, did by virtue of his office as Sheriff and under the last named .writs of attachments again seize and reduce to his possession the entire stock of merchandisewhich Had
Your petitioners further show unto your Honor that Frank Phillips as Clerk of said Court aforesaid did on the 24th day of October, A. D. 1892, issue an order commanding the said A. Scott as Sheriff aforesaid to sell said goods under the powers conferred under Sec. 1655 of the Revised Statutes of Florida, and that A. Scott in obedience to said order did advertise the same to sell on the 29th of the present month, only two days off, that a copy of said advertisement is hereunto annexed. (Not found by the Clerk)
Your petitioners further show unto your Honor that the said Lewis &' Bro., as aforesaid, have filed with the Clerk of said Court, a motion to dissolve all of the aforementioned attachments.
The premises considered, your petitioners Lewis & Bro., the defendants in all the beforementioned attachments, and Callie H. Lewis, the claimant to all the property levied upon, moves the Court to grant an order vacating the last levies made by said Sheriff in favor of The Standard • Guano and Chemical Mfg. Co. in two' different attachments, brought by them at the same time in the same Court, and levied on the said same stock of merchandise, also' the levy made by said Sheriff on said same stock in favor of The Barney Cavanaugh Hardware Co., also the levy made by said
Mrs. Callie H. Lewis, Lewis & Bro.
'State of Florida, Jackson County.
Before me, Frank Phillips, Clerk of the Circuit Court of said County, personally came H. H. Lewis, one of the firm of Lewis & Bro., and one of the petitioners in above motion, who is also one of the defendants to the aforesaid and stated cases, who being by me first duly sworn, deposes and says' that all the matters and things alleged in the petition herein are true and correct according to his knowledge and belief. H. H. Lewis.
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 2nd day of October, 1892. Frank Phíllips,
Clerk of the Ct. Ct. Jackson Co'.
To this petition the defendants named therein filed the following demurrer: “Now come the respondents and demur to the petition herein, add for matters of law
Upon this demurrer the Circuit Judge on November 8th, 1892, made the following order : “These several suits brought by attachment to November term, a rule day. These several causes coming on to be heard upon a motion made by the defendants and Mrs. Callie H. Lewis, the claimant in a claim suit now pending in this court involving the identical goods levied upon by the sheriff to satisfy the writs issued' in the above cases. The motion being to vacate the levy made by the sheriff and to ' have the property levied upon returned to the claimant. There was a demurrer interposed to the motion or petition, and, upon a hearing of argument by counsel, it is' the order of
The order overruling the demurrer to the petition, and the order directing the sheriff to surrender the goods levied upon under the respondents’ several writs of attachment to the petitioner Callie H. Lewis are assigned as error. The court below erred in both of these orders. The respondents’ demurrer to the petition should have been sustained and the petition dismissed, for the following reason: By her petition Mrs. Callie H. Lewis shows that she has no other right, title or interest in or to the personal property levid upon by the various writs of attachment in favor of the respondents to her petition than that of a mere mortgagee holding a lien thereon in the shape of a chattel mortgage. She does not show that she was in possession or entitled to the possession of the property in controversy that was levied upon by the writs of attachment as the property of Lewis and Brother. A person holding a bare mortgage upon personal property in this State, with no right to present possession for such property, can not maintain a claim- proceeding of such property, under the statutes of this State, as against attaching creditors of the mortgagor thereof. Stansel v. Rountree & Co., 40 Fla. 428, 25 South. Rep. 277. As this disposes of the case we will not discuss other questions presented.
The judgment of the court below is reversed, with directions to sustain the demurrer to' the petition of the defendants in error, and to dismiss such petition.
