Case ID: scl_2/html/0417-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Judges,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Douglass against Frizzle.
    
      Columbia.
    
    1802.
    Where a ?ent»íby ac-attending*'°5 y oa|l of lha (locket, and his witnesses do not attend according to !.he™se’ are ’n-í» ™f3ble for seitm£ .as,tie a nonsuit ordered ior not being ready to proceed to trial*
    MOTION to set aside a nonsuit.
    Upon the call of the docket at the circuit court at Lan-Vaster district, the plaintiff was not ready with his witnesses to go to trial, whereupon he was nonsuited. The day fol- ■ lowing the order for nonsuit, the plaintiff moved to have his cause reinstated on the docket for trial at the next court, Upon sundry affidavits, stating that the plaintiff himself .was . .... ... . . accidentally prevented irom going to court in time to support his cause, on the call of the docket, and that several of his witnesses who had promised to attend did not, owing, as .he conceived, to a heavy fall of rain, which had raised seve-7 J 7 xal of the water-courses so as to make them impassable ; but the court below did not think these sufficient reasons, especially as many causes had been very frequently put off, Under very frivolous pretences.
    This was, therefore, a motion to set aside this nonsuit.
   The Judges,

after hearing the reasons for and against this motion, said, that they had very frequently observed' causes postponed on very trifling pretences, and therefore It was necessary to attend strictly to the call of the dockets in the district courts, as many shameful delays had been experienced in them. But in this case it would be hard to cut the plaintiff off from a chance of justice, as he swears he was prevented by unavoidable accident from attending himself, and that several of his witnesses had promised to attend, but were prevented by a heavy fall of rain and freshes from attending. And although the promise of a witness to attend without a subpoena is not a good ground for putting off a trial, yet, when connected with the other circumstances-In this case, it appears to be a reasonable ground within the discretion of the court.

Nonsuit set aside.

All the Judges present.