Case ID: how-pr_4/html/0066-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Welles, Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SUPREME COURT.
    Joseph Holmes agt. Moses St. John, Willard Blunt and Franklin Blunt.
    
      Costs must now be regulated and allowed in pursuance of the amended code, even though the suit was commenced prior thereto and was pending when it took effect. There is no provision, saving from its operation in that respect, suits pending.
    In cases of assault and battery, no more costs than damages can be recovered, (§ 304 amended code, 4th sub.) if the recovery is less than $50.
    
      Cataraugus Circuit and Special Term, July, 1849.
    —The action in this case was for an assault and battery, and was commenced after the act entitled, “ an act to simplify and abridge the practice, pleadings and proceedings of the courts of this state,” passed April 12,1848, took effect, and before the amendment of that act on the 11th of April, 1849. Two of the defendants appeared and answered, and the cause was tried, at the present circuit, when the plaintiff recovered a verdict of six cents damages. The plaintiff claims that he is entitled to judgment upon his verdict, together with the full costs of the court. The defendant insists that the plaintiff is entitled to recover no more costs than damages.
   Welles, Justice.

The 4th subdivision of § 304 of the amended code limits the plaintiff’s recovery of costs to the amount of - his damages. But it is insisted that, as the action was commenced previous to the passage of the amendment, and under the original act, which allowed full costs in such cases, the plaintiff’s right to costs must be governed by the law as it existed at the time the action was commenced. The code, as amended, is the only law in existence under which the plaintiff can ask for costs at all. Costs were not given at common law in any case, and the subject was always regulated by statute. There is no provision of the amended code, saving from the operation of the section referred to, cases pending at the time of its adoption. It follows, therefore, that the plaintiff is entitled to no more costs than the amount of his verdict. The clerk will enter judgment accordingly.