Equity Savings & Loan Co. v. Boisfontaine

Citations

• 115 La. 842
• 40 So. 241
• 1905 La. LEXIS 746

Syllabus

<p>Justices oe the Peace — Appeal—1Trial De Novo — Garnishment. •</p> <p>On a rule taken in the city court upon a garnishee to show cause why the answers which it had given to interrogatories propounded to it, negativing indebtedness to a judgment debtor, should not be set aside, and why .judgment should not be rendered against it, and judgment rendered against it pro confesso, the answers were set aside. The ground assigned was that the garnishee had not produced its books on the day of the trial of the rule, as it had been directed to do. The court refused a new trial. The garnishee had excepted to the legal right and authority of that court to order the production of the books. The garnishee appealed to the Court of Appeal from that judgment. On trial in that court, garnishee was allowed (over plaintiff’s objection) to introduce its books in evidence, and, the truthfulness of the answers being verified by them, the judgment appealed from was reversed. This judgment was brought up for review to the Supreme Court.</p> <p>Held; The garnishee appealed from the “judgment” which had been rendered against it. The conclusion reached by the city court that the failure of the garnishee to produce its books authorized it to consider the answers to the interrogatories successfully traversed, and thereupon to render judgment against the garnishee, was simply an interlocutory ruling of the court on matters of evidence and in no sense a judgment. That ruling and the action of the court below refusing a new trial were carried to the appellate court for the appeal, and.the Court of Appeal, finding error therein, was authorized (as the trial in that court was de novo) to allow the books to be used in evidence and to render the judgment it did.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.l</p>