Case ID: scl_9/html/0371-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. J ustice Grimke.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Hobson against John Humphries.
    nr. Misrepresents-a Jury after and sanction court,^e-if they have not made It such í they intended,
    This was an action of assumpsit to recover 100 dollars, which plaintiff proved, by three witnesses, that defendant had promised him, if he would ride out and show him where a certain n „ .. . . family of negroes was, and that he (plaintiff) came to defendant’s house, for the purpose going to show these negroes. The defendant replied in evidence, that when the plaintiff offered to show these negroes to the defendant, that the defendant said, he had heard of a family of negroes in Newberry answering this description, and that he supposed they were the same : that plaintiff replied to this, that these were not the negroes, and that the family inquired of by defendant were more than 100 miles distant, and that if defendant would not give him that sum, he knew a man that would, for the information he could give relative to them. That afterwards plaintiff came to defendant’s house, for the purpose of going to show the negroes, which he then stated were in Newberry, and which proved to be the same which defendant had discovered before : defendant, therefore, refused to go with plaintiff, or to pay him the 100 dollars.
    It appeared, from the report of the Judge, that the Jury first brought in a verdict of 12 dollars, and, upon the suggestion of the plaintiff’s counsel, that that gum would pot carry costs, the J ury was permitted to retire, and then returned with •a verdict of 12 dollars 75 cents. The present motion is, therefore, for a new trial; 1st, Because the plaintiff’s demand was bottomed on the false representation which he had made to the defendant, and which induced the defendant to enter into the agreement with him; and, 2d, Because the Court permitted the Jury, upon the suggestion of the plaintiff’s attorney, t© retire and re-consider their verdict.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Mr. J ustice Grimke.

With respect to the first point, it appears that the plaintiff^ knowing where a certain family of negroes was, proposed to show them to the defendant, upon his paying him 100 dollars; and that in offering this contract to the consideration of the defendant; he endeavoured, in the first instance, to mislead the defendant, assuring him that the negroes were not in Newberry, but 100 miles off! It is proper and necessary that every party who enters into a contract, should do so with the utmost fairness and good faith, and that wherever any fraud or concealment of any circumstances is practised by either party, it vitiates the contract. In the present case this attempt was made by the plaintiff; for when the defendant informed him that he had heard of such negroes answering this description, the plaintiff endeavoured to persuade him these were not the negroes he was inquiring about, when in fact it turned out that these were the very negroes he was in search of, and this the plaintiff himself acknowledged afterwards, and that they were in ■ the very district in which the defendant had informed him they were, as he understood. I am therefore of opinion that the plaintiff was not entitled even to the trifling sum which the Jury have given him, and that there must be a new trial. On the 2d ground, I have no doubt that the retiring of the Jury, and the amending of their verdict, was consonant to the uniform practice and usage of the Courts, and that great injustice would frequently be done, where the Jury are mistaken, unless they had an opportunity of rectifying, under the eye of the Court, such error as they have committed.

CokocJc, JSfott, Cheves, and Gantt, J. concurred.