Case ID: ohio-ch_1/html/0649-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Wright, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

McCOY v. THOMPSON.
    Bill of particulars — evidence confined to*
    The bill of particulars filed in the justices court is required to be certified up with the appeal^ and the evidence on the trial is confined to the items set out in it.
    Error to the Common Pleas. McCoy brought assumpsit against Thompson before a justice of the peace. A bill of particulars was furnished by the plaintiff at the trial before the justice, and the defendant recovered a judgment. The plaintiff appealed to the Common Pleas, and a trial was had on non assumpsit. During the trial, the plaintiff offered evidence of items not included in the bill of particulars, which the defendant objected to, and the court ruled out the evidence, because the bill of particulars gave no notice of such claim. Judgment went for the defendant, and the plaintiff now seeks to reverse the judgment, because the court erred in ruling out the evidence.
    
      D. S. Bell, for the plaintiff.
    
      J. XL. Bacon, contra.
   Wright, J.

Thed act of assembly (29 O.L. 175) expressly provides that the plaintiff or defendant, if required, shall file a bill of the particulars of his demand, and that Hhe evidence on the trial shall he confined to the items set forth in the said hills.'1 The same act (p. 178) requires a justice of the peace, when a case is appealed, to transmit the bill of particulars to the Court of Common Pleas. The terms of the act are general, and confines the evidence on the trial of the cause to the matters contained in the bill: it is not as supposed, limited to the trial before the justice, either in the terms or the spirit of the act. If the terms of the provision were equivocal, the other provisions of the act would remove doubt. Why require the justice to send up the bill with the other papers when the case is appealed, if not intended to be used when sent up? What other use could be made of it, than to confine the evidence to it at the trial? We think the Common Pleas did not err in confirming the evidence to the bill of particulars before the justice, and affirm the judgment.