Case ID: pen-w_3/html/0098-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WALKER against LYON.
    A transcript of a judgment filed in pursuance of the act of assembly, is in its legal elf'ect a judgment of the court of Common Pleas, and may be so called- in a writ of scire facias to revive the same.
    When a judgment is rendered by a justice for a sum exceeding his jurisdiction, a transcript whereof is filed, the remedy to correct the error, is by motion to have it struck off, qr.by writ of error.
    A judgment of a justice, for a sum exceeding his jurisdiction, having been docketed, ■ it cannot be treated asa nullity; and even if it could, its validity can only be questioned, in a scire fácias to revive it, by the plea of nul liel record.
    
    Error to the court of Common Pleas of Mercer county.
    
      Joseph I^yon brought a suit against the .executors of John Walker before a justice of the peace which was . there referred to arbitrators, who made an award for the plaintiff -for one hundred and sixty eight dollars: upon which the justice.entered a judgment; a transcript whereof was filed in the court of Common Pleas in 1821. Pi scire facias P. P: et I). was issued to févivé this judgment, to which the defendants appeared and plead payment toith leave, fyc. Replication Non solvit. Issue. Upon the trial of this cause the defendants objected to the admission of thé record of the1 transcript and judgment in evidence; the objection, was over-ruled, and the court charged the jury that the plaintiff was entitled to recover.
    
      J. Bankas for plaintiff in error,
    Contended, that the justice had no jurisdiction of the original cause of action, it being above o-ne hundred dollars. The scire fa* cias recited a judgment of the court of Common Pleas, whereas the oné offered in evidence was an illegal judgment of a justice of the peace. Cited Brenneman v. Greneioalt, 1 Serg. .and, Rawle, 30. M’Kellip v. M’Kellip, 2 Serg. fy Rawle, 490. Hinds v. Wills, 13 Serg. 4’ Rawle, 214. 2 Stark. Ev. 801, p. 4.
    
    
      Holstein contra.
   Per Curiam.

The defendants, having admitted by their plea, the,existence of the judgment set out, and put their .defence on the fact of payment, could not resist the production-of the record or controvert its effect. But in its legal effect, it was what it was recited to 'be, the practice being universal to treat it, for the purpose of execution; as a judgment of the court. Nor could want of jurisdiction in the justice be urged in this proceeding, the remedy being a motion to have the judgment struck off, or perhaps reversed on a writ of error. Having been received and docketed as a judgment of the court,’it could not be treated as a nullity; and even if it could, its validity ought to have been put- in issue by the plea of nul tiel record.

Judgment affirmed.