Case ID: ga_25/html/0132-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Benning, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Smith & North, Plaintiffs in error, vs. Elam S. Ashcraft and Eliza S. Ashcraft, Defendants in error.
    A demand for $2S, is not beneath the dignity of a Court of Equity in Georgia.
    Equity, from Coweta county. Decided by Judge Hammond, September Term, 1857.
    A bill in equity was filed in the Court below, seeking to recover the sum of $28. The plaintiff stated in his bill, that the debt was contracted by the defendant, Eliza Ash-craft ; that her husband Elam S. Ashcraft was insolvent, and that the defendant Eliza had property settled to her separate use, and prayed that the defendant Eliza Ashcraft might be decreed to pay the debt out of that separate estate.
    A motion was made to dismiss the bill on the ground that it was beneath the dignity of a Court of Equity. The Court sustained the motion and dismissed the bill, and to this decision of the Court, the complainants excepted.
    Powell, for plaintiffs in error.
    Buchanan, contra.
    
   By the Court.

Benning, J.

delivering the opinion.

Is a demand for only $28, beneath the dignity of a Court of Equity, and therefore one not to be entertained by a Court of Equity ? The Court below decided that it is.

In this, the Court we think, erred. The fifty-third section of the Judiciary Act of 1799, declares, that "the Superior Courts in the several counties shall exercise the powers of a Court of Equity in all cases where a common law remedy is not adequate,” &c. The italicising is mine.

Language so imperative, and so comprehensive, as this, must have the effect to abrogate the rule, excluding from the Court of Chancery, suits, " where the subject matter of the litigation is under the value of 10l.” — 1. Danl. Ch. Pr. 431.

The late Act allowing suits at law, against trustees, &c. will, doubtless, go far to relieve Courts of Equity of such suits as this, in the future.

Judgment reversed.