Case ID: scl_12/html/0171-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": ".Mr. Justice J’ohjison\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Surviving Ex’rs of Mann vs. Adm’rs. of Jas. Taylor.
    Interest can not be recovered upon a Scire Facias.
    
    The plaintiff had originally brought an action of debt on a penal bond, conditioned for the payment of money, in which he recovered; and in May, 1308, entered up his judgment for the penalty. At which time the principal and interest was equal to, if it did not exi ee l, the penalty. The judgment being unsatisfied, the plaintiff sued out a scire facias, and in 1817, judgment went thereon against the defendant by default; and upon a reference to the cleric, he assessed damages for the plaintiff to the amount of the interest, which had accrued subsequent to the rendition of the judgment in 1808, The amount of the first judgment, (the penalty of the bond,) and all the costs, had been paid.
    A motion was made in the Court below for an order, that satisfaction should be entered on the judgment on the scire facias. The motion was granted; and the plaintiff now moved to set aside that order, on the ground, that he was entitled to the damages, assessed by the clerk, as interest,
   .Mr. Justice J’ohjison

delivered the opinion of the court.

The act of 1815, under which the clerk supposed himself authorized to assess damages in this case, was not, I apprehend, intended to give interest when it was excluded by the forms of proceeding. If for instance, a plaintiff, in declaring on a single bill, lay his damages at one shilling, a jury would not be at liberty to give him more; on the general principle that the plaintiff cannot recover more than is laid in his declaration, whatever the interest might have amounted to. On this subject the act contemplated no change, it was only intended to authorize and point out the mode by which a plaintiff might recover interest, which accrued after judgment, and before satisfaction, in those .cases, where the. original causo of action bare interest.

Gregg, for the motion.

Stark,- contra.

That interest cannot be recovered in proceedings by scire facias must be apparent to every one who will turn their attention to their form and character; and the authorities on this point are very satisfactory. (Vide 3 Burrows, 1789, Knox vs. Costello. 2 Lord Raymond, 1532, Henriques vs. The Dutch West-India Company. Strange, 309.)

The motion is therefore refused.

Justices Colcock, Gantt, Richardson and Huger, concurred.