Case ID: scl_31/html/0564-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Curia, per Evans, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

A. G. Leek vs. D. Goodman.
    
    If, in an action in the Common Pleas, the defendant, by proof of payment, reduce the plaintiff’s demand to or below twenty dollars, the court is ousted of its jurisdiction, and the jury should find for the defendant.
    
      Before Evans, J. at Edgefield, Spring Term, 1846.
    The report of his Honor the presiding Judge, is as follows :
    “ The questions presented by the brief, arose out of these facts: The plaintiff let the defendant have five bales of cotton; he owed the defendant two debts ; one was in judgment, the other on a note. The question was whether the cotton was a payment on the judgment, as the plaintiff contended, or on the note, as the defandant contended. It was not allowed on the judgment, and Leek sued Goodman for the amount of the cotton, with some demands, which were rejected by the jury and unnecessary to be stated. I told the jury it was wholly immaterial on which of these debts the cotton was received in payment, except that in the event it was received as a payment on the note, it might be that the plaintiff would not be entitled to any costs, if they rejected his other demands. The jury found for the defendant; and at a subsequent period of the court, upon my attention being called to the matter, the foreman of the jury said that they considered the cotton as received in payment on the note, and as only about six dollars was due to the plaintiff after deducting the note, they had found for the defendant — understanding my charge to be, that the plaintiff could not recover, unless the amount due him was over a magistrate’s jurisdiction. I did not feel at liberty to direct any alteration in the verdict without consent. About the state of pleading I was not informed— something was said about notice of discount.”
    The plaintiff appealed, and now moved for a new trial, on the following grounds :
    1. Because the jury understood his Honor to say that, if they allowed the defendant’s discount, they could not find a verdict for the plaintiff, unless the balance in his favor amounted to twenty dollars or more.
    
      2. Because admitting that the discount of the defendant was fully proved, yet the balance was in favor of the plaintiff, and the jury should have found for him.
    3. Because upon the foreman’s stating to the court, after the publication of the verdict, that it was given upon a misapprehension of his Honor’s charge, the jury should have been directed to correct their verdict according to a just understanding of the charge.
    
      Wigfall, for the motion.
    Griffin, contra.
   Curia, per Evans, J.

In this case, the question to be decided is this : If the plaintiff’s demand, as proved, be reduced by payments to a sum below the jurisdiction of the court, is he entitled to a verdict for what is actually due, although the sum be within the jurisdiction of a magistrate 7

A payment extinguishes the debt, and the balance is all that is due ; lor this alone a right of action exists, and the plaintiff at his peril must bring his action within the proper jurisdiction. Where a discount is pleaded, and is allowed by the jury, then the verdict is rendered for the balance. These are independent demands, for each of which a separate action might be brought, and the jury, in finding the balance, does, under our discount law, what the court might do if each had sued the other, and judgments had been rendered for each, by ordering one to be set off against the other.

The principle involved in this case was settled in the case of Vaughan vs. Cade, decided at the session of this court in December last. In that case the jury allowed as a payment a sum which reduced the plaintiff’s demand below the jurisdiction of the court, and gave a verdict for the balance. This court ordered the proceedings to be stayed, and refused to render a judgment upon the finding.

In that case there was a notice of discount, but it was clear from the nature of the demand it could only have been allowed as a payment; in this case the jury have found it was a payment, and correctly rendered a verdict for the defendant; and the motion is dismissed.

Richardson, O’Neall, Wardlaw and Frost, íl-eon curred. 
      
      
         Ante, 49.