Ostrander v. Packer

Statutory exemptions: Team-. Where a party is entitled to hold a team as exempt from execution, an officer, claiming that what the debtor has which will answer the designation is of greater value than the statute exempts, should levy on the whole and have it appraised, to give opportunity for the selection the statute contemplates, and he cannot lawfully levy upon and nold a horse of less value than the exemption allowed hy the statute, and which the debtor claims and is entitled to retain as exempt, though the debtor have other property of the same class.1

Error to Saginaw Circuit. This was replevin, brought by Packer to recover a horse, which Ostrander, as deputy sheriff, bad levied upon and taken by virtue of a writ of attachment against Packer. The horse was claimed by Packer to be exempt' from execution, and it was shown that he was engaged in a business which required the use of a team. The value of the horse was variously estimated by the witnesses at from one hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars, and it was shown that Packer also had at the time another horse and a harness. There was also evidence that the horse in question was a trotting horse and had previously been kept in training for that purpose. The judgment below was for the plaintiff, and defendant brought error.