Case ID: njl_2/html/0311-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Kirkpatrick, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

COOPER against WOOLLEY.
    OÍT CERTIORARI.
    Judgment for more than demand, error.
    After the parties had met before the justice on the return day of the summons, the justice made the following entry in his docket. Adjourned to the 21st instant, and a venire for a jury of 12 men at the request of plaintiff, subpoena John Gifford, who was rejected by the defendant as a legal witness, but was alLowed by the court. Judgment by the verdict of a jury of 12 men, in behalf of the plaintiff, for the sum of $75 in debt, and $5.27 costs. The jury was William Allen, &c. (naming the jury.) This was all the record of the trial, verdict and judgment. Whether the parties appeared on the day of adjournment — whether any witnesses were sworn or not — whether the jury [240] were sworn or not, or how the trial was had or conducted — or whether the trial was had on the day of adjournment, does not appear by the record. A paper [f] was sent up by the justice purporting to be the state of demand in the following words and figures:
    May, 1791. Sold Phillip Cooper a pair of oxen..... £15 0 0
    This was delivered to the justice on the day of trial, as he certifies on the back of it. Cooper, the defendant below, against whom the judgment was obtained, brought this certiorari, and assigned eight reasons for the reversal of judgment — among which, that the state of demand was not filed on the return day of the summons as the act of Assembly requires: and that the verdict and judgment was for a larger sum than set out in the state of demand.
    
    
      Scudder, for plaintiff.
    
      
       Vide ante, 319, post, 374.
      
    
   Kirkpatrick, C. J.

— This record is defective in almost everything; therefore, judgment must be reversed.

The other justices concurred.

Judgment reversed.