Case ID: vt_14/html/0563-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Redfield, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ephraim Ainsworth v. Elias S. Drew.
    The time, within which a plea in offset, in an action on hook account, shall be filed in the county court, rests solely in the discretion of that court, and their determination in regard to it cannot be revised in this court.
    This was an action of book account. Judgment to account was rendered in the county court, and an auditor appointed, who, at a subsequent term, reported a balance due the plaintiff. Upon the coming in of the auditor’s report, the defendant filed a plea in offset, declaring on a promissory note, and in the common counts. The plaintiff objected to the plea, contending that it should have been filed at the term when the action was entered in the county court. But the county court overruled the objection, and received the plea. Issue, was joined to the court on the plea in offset, and, on the trial of that issue, the county court found for the defendant to recover a larger sum, on his plea in offset, than the amount found due the plaintiff by the auditor, and rendered judgment for the defendant to recover the balance due him from the plaintiff, with cost.
    The plaintiff excepted.
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Redfield, J.

No practice in regard to the time, in which pleas in set-off, in actions of book account, shall be pleaded in the county court, has yet been settled. It is only since the last revision of the statutes that any such plea was allowed in this action. The statute in this case does not, as in some others, prescribe the time, within which such plea shall be filed. It must, therefore, be left wholly to the discretion of that court to determine by their general rule, when such pleas shall be filed. And if they have established no such rules, or admit a plea even in opposition to those rules, we have no supervision over their proceeding. It is a matter upon which' they have an absolute discretion, and their decisions, therefore, are in no sense subject to revision in this court.

Judgment affirmed.