Case ID: njl_9/html/0050-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Chief Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Daniel Snowhill, qui tam, Plaintiff, vs. Nathaniel Hillyer.
    CERTIORARI TO THE COMMON PLEAS OP MIDDLESEX.
    •A judgment of nonsuit in a former action between the same parties, is no bar to a subsequent action by the same plaintiff against the same defendant for the same cause of action.
    The plaintiff in certiorari, Snowhill, brought an action qui tam, against Hillyer, before a justice of the peace, (for cutting timber on land to which the defendant had no title.) On the trial before the justice, the defendant offered in evidence, as a bar to this action, the transcript or record of the *39] proceedings in a former suit brought *by Snowhill, plaintiff, against the same defendant for the same cause of action, in which suit a judgment of non-suit was entered against Snowhill. The justice, notwithstanding this record, gave judgment in favor of Snowhill, the plaintiff, for $56 debt and $2.75 costs.
    From this judgment Hillyer appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of Middlesex, and upon the hearing of the appeal the same record of the former suit was offered in evidence by the appellant, Hillyer, and relied upon by him as a bar to the suit, and the Court of Common Pleas being. of opinion that the former judgment of non-suit was a bar, reversed the judgment which had been rendered in favor of Snowhill the appellee and gave judgment for Hillyer. To set aside this judgment, Snowhill brought the certiorari, and now, Hamilton for the plaintiff, moved to reverse the judgment of the Common Pleas and assigned among others the following reason : “ Because the Court of Common Pleas erred in admitting the said transcript and judgment therein stated, as a conclusive bar to the present action.”
    
      Wood contra.
   Chief Justice.

We are all of opinion that the Court of Common Pleas erred in considering the former judgment of the justice as a bar. Being only a judgment of non-suit, it was no bar; and therefore the judgment of the Common Pleas must bo reversed.