Robinson v. Mead

The action of replevin is local in its nature, and must be brought in the county where the goods and chattels are taken or attached.

The plaintiff, naming himself of Boston, sued this writ of replevin of a chaise attached by the defendant, a deputy sheriff, of the county of Middlesex, at Cambridge, in said county. The defendant pleaded property in a stranger, and, after a verdict, finding the chaise to be the property of the plaintiff, moved in arrest of judgment for the following cause: — “ Because the said Robinson, by his own showing in his writ aforesaid, hath alleged that the goods and chattels therein mentioned were taken and attached by said Mead in Cambridge, in the county of Middlesex, and not in the county of Suffolk, in which last county the said writ was sued out and made returnable; whereas, by the law of the land, the said Robinson ought to have sued out his writ of replevin for the said goods and chattels, if any just cause he had, in the Court of Common Pleas, established and holding pleas in the said county of Middlesex, and not in the said county of Suffolk” The cause was argued at the last March term in this [ * 354 ] * county, by Davis, solicitor-general, and Munroe, for the plaintiff, and Fuller for the defendant.