Case ID: scl_12/html/0029-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice yohnsott\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Mary Bingley vs. John T. Smart.
    i person .who lias petitioned for the benefit of the insolvent debtor’s act, may amend his schedule after it had been filed, unless there he fraud in it.
    THE defendant was arrested on a ca. sa. at the suit of the plaintiff, in an action of detinue, for a watch, and petitioned the City Court of Charleston to be discharged, under the prison bounds act. The Recorder reported that his discharge was objected to, on two grounds :
    1st. That the schedule rendered in by bim did not contain a sufficiency of property to pay the debt for which he had been arrested.
    2d. Because he had not returned a watch which belonged to bim.
    In relation to the watch, the defendant proved that before he applied for the benefit of the act, he informed the; plaintiff that uponpaying a certain sum,for which the watch was pledged, she might have it, and that she refused ; hut that she might still obtain the watch.on the same condition.
    It was. admitted on' the part of the defendant, that by tbe verdict of the jury, the watch, the present subject oí dispute, had been determined to be in the possession of the defendant, and that a fi. fa. had been lodged against him, and it was therefore insisted, that the defendant could not transfer any property in it to another. But it did not appear whether the watch had been pledged before or after the judgment and execution. The Recorder permitted the defendaut to amend his schedule by inserting therein all his interest in the watch, and allowed the defendant to be discharged. A motion was .now made to reverse that decision on the grounds,
    1st. That the defendant is not entitled to the benefit of the act, because, the watch for which the action was brought, was in his possession at the time the execution was lodged ; and
    Sndly. That he should not have been permitted to amend his schedule after it had been filed.
   Mr. Justice yohnsott

delivered the opinion of the Court,

These grounds are resolvable into the single question of fact, whether the defendant was guilty of a fraud in not including the watch in his schedule, as originally filed ? For it certainly never was tbe intention of the Legislature to consign a citizen to perpetual imprisonment, who should from inadvertence, or a mistaken view of his rights, omit to include an article of property in his schedule, in which he had an interest. If there were no fraud in this case, tbe Recorder decided correctly in permitting him to amend it. On the subject of fraud, it appears to me, that so far frbm there being any evidmee against the defendant, thecir-cumstances,go very far to shew that he acted with all imaginable fairness. Before he applied for the benefit of the act, he told, the plaintiff that he had pledged the watch, and that it might be redeemed by advancing the money loaned on it. And whether it was qv was not pledged'for a bona fide consideration, has not been ■ made to appear; nor does it appear whether it was before or after the judgment and execution. ■ ,

Furman, for the motion..

y. P. White, contra.

Use Court are therefore of opinion that the motion ought to be discharged.

Justices Colccck, Nott, Huger, and Gantt, concurred.