Summary

Matthews v. Densmore — Opinion of the Court

If in a case where the title to land is to be divested by a proceeding in which its owner is not within the jurisdiction, and is never served with process nor makes any appearance, the writ on which the whole matter depends is held valid, though there be no sufficient affidavit to support it, how much more should the writ be held to protect the officer in a case where the defendant is in court and makes no objection to it, nor seeks to set aside to correct it, and where the court before it issues the writ has jurisdiction of the parties to the suit?
Source: Wikisource

Matthews v. Densmore — Opinion of the Court

If the writ of attachment is the lawful writ of the court, issued in proper form under the seal of the court, and if it is by the proper office levied upon property liable to the attachment, when such writ is returned into the court the power of the court over the res is established. The affidavit is the preliminary to issuing the writ. It may be a defective affidavit, or possibly the officer whose duty it is to issue the writ may have failed in some manner to observe all the requisite formalities, but the writ being issued and levied, the affidavit has served its purpose
Source: Wikisource

Matthews v. Densmore — Opinion of the Court

We think that when the writ is offered in a collateral suit against the officer who executed it as evidence of the authority of the court to command him to attach the property of defendant in that suit, it is not void, though it might be avoided on a proper proceeding; and in the contest for the value of the goods seized, with a stranger who claims them, it is sufficient to raise the issue of the liability of those goods to the exigency of the writ.
Source: Wikisource

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