West 132 Feet v. City of Orlando

Citations

• 80 Fla. 233

Syllabus

<p>1. An uncertain description of property in the caption of a citation in a proceeding in rem may be aided and the notice made sufficient by a correct description in the body of the citation, since reasonable diligence would require the reading of the entire notice.</p> <p>2. Where a petition for writ of assistance shows a prima facie right in petitioner, it becomes the duty of a defendant in his answer, to set up his rights and claims fully and in such manner that his defense. may be understood by the petitioner and by the court.</p> <p>3. If an answer to a petition for writ of assistance sets up a defense, and the petitioner fails to reply thereto, proper practice requires the court to take as true the facts stated in the answer, but if the answer shows no right on the part of the occupant to contest the petitioner’s claim of right to possession, the court may ignore the answer and award the writ.</p> <p>4. The purchaser of property at a public sale under a foreclosure decree filed his petition for writ of assistance against parties who were strangers to the foreclosure proceedings and who by their answer failed to show that they had any interest in the property except that of bare possession and failed to show when such possession began, but who assumed to defend on behalf of others as alleged owners: Held, That where the. court in the foreclosure proceeding appeared on the face of the record to have had jurisdiction, the regularity of such proceeding could not be put in issue by such persons in resisting the application for a writ of assistance.</p> <p>5. Courts are bound to take notice of the limits of their authority, and'if want of jurisdiction appears at any stage of the proceeding, originál or appellate, the court should notice the defect and. enter an appropriate order, but where the jurisdictional steps prescribed by statute in a proceeding in view appear on the face of the record to have been regularly taken, the court has no power to look behind the re