Case ID: serg-rawl_17/html/0424-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Gibson, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[Pittsburg,
    September 23, 1828.]
    GEARY and another against CUNNINGHAM.
    IN ERROR.
    After going to trial, and verdict, it seems, it is too late to object in error, that a statement has been filed instead of a declaration,
    A statement may be filed in a suit on a recognisance of bail in error.
    The omission of the date of such recognisance in the statement, is cured by verdict.
    ■Erroji to the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny county.
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny county, at the suit of P. Cunningham, the defendant in error, against the plaintiffs in error, Geary and .Gray, a summons issued in debt, two thousand dollars, sur recognisance to prosecute a writ of error with effect. A statement was filed and the. qaiise arbitrated. An award was made against the defendants for one thousand, one hundred and eighty-four dollars and eighty-nine cents.
    ■ .The following was the statement filed by the plaintiffs. There were no other pleadings in the case: — •
    “A judgment had been obtained'in th^.'Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny county, by Patrick Cunningham against Richard 
      
      Geary for one thousand and eighteen dollars and eighty-seven and a half cents. A writ of error was issued to this judgment by E. Geary, and P. Geary and James Gray were each bound in the sum of two thousand dollars, to prosecute the writ of error with effect, or pay the amount of the debt, interest, and costs, in case it was determined against the plaintiffs in error. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas, whereby Eichard Geary and James Gray became liable to pay the amount of the judgment so affirmed, with interest and costs of suit.. Wherefore suit is brought.
    The plaintiff in error assigned for error, that the present case does not come within the act of the 21st of March, 1S06, concerning statements, &c.; and if it does, the statement filed in this case is defective and insufficient, in not stating the amount which the plaintiff believed justly due to him, and in not stating the date of ¿be recognisance on which suit is brought.
    
      Burke, for the plaintiff in error.
    
      Baldwin, contra.
    
   The opinion of the court' was delivered by

Gibson, C. J.

It would be little creditable to the administration of the law, were exceptions like the present to prevail. A. party lies by with his objection while a statement is filed in a cause perhaps proper for a declaration, and goes to trial befcrp arbitrators, trusting to his chance of an- award on that state of the pleadings: does not this amount to an agreement to waive exceptions, just as the acceptance of a short plea is a waiver of a plea in form? This principle of waiver was recognised in Sauerman v. Weckerly, at Philadelphia, in December last, (Ante, 116,) where it was held, that going to trial without plea or issue, and on a declaration containing blank spaces for dates and sums, was sufficient from which to imply an agreement to try on the merits. The defendant might have liad the pleadings set right in' the court below, and it is too late to object here, that a declaration ought to have been filed, or that the statement is informal. It is, however, by no means clear, that the statement was not the proper medium of setting forth the cause of action. A recognisance, with a condition for the payment of money, is in substance an obligation; and the condition here was a very simple one, to pay a liquidated sum on the happening of a particular event.- I am satisfied our construction of the statement act has hitherto been too narrow. It is a remedial law, and to be construed liberally in advancement of the remedy. But the statement here is defective in omitting the date of the recognisance, that being a circumstance specially directed to. be stated,- by the terms of. the act. Bpt this, like other formal'defects, is cured by the award, which is equivalent to a verdict. > When a title appears on the pleadings, no matter how informally, an objection afier verdict must not prevail. Judgment affirmed,