Spear v. Given — 9 Paige Ch. 362

Majority

p. 362

Spear and Patten vs. Given and Eells.

Headnote

The provision of the revised statutes requiring the court of chancery to disv miss suits concerning property where the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, does not exceed the value of $100, refers to the costs of the suit in the court of chancery. A creditor’s bill may, therefore, be filed where the agrégate amount of the debt and costs included in the complainant’s judgment, and still due, exceeds one hundred dollars.

October 22.

This was an application for a receiver upon a creditor’s bill. And the defendants’ counsel objected that the coqrt ought not to take jurisdiction of the caseras the amount pf the debt for which the judgment in the suit at law was

p. 363

rendered was less than $100; although the debt and costs in that suit exceeded that sum.

J. Rhoades, for the complainants.

R. J. Hilton, for the defendants.

said the words “ exclusive of costs” in the 37th section of the title of the revised statutes relative to the court of chancery, (2 R. S. 173,) directing the court to dismiss every suit concerning property, where the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, does not exceed the value of $100, refers to the costs of the suit in that court merely. That a judgment creditor, therefore, who had recovered a judgment in a court of law, and upon which judgment there was due for debt and costs more than $100, was authorized to file a creditor’s bill; although the amount due upon such judgment, exclusive of the costs included therein, was less than $100, at the time of filing such bill.