Case ID: serg-rawl_5/html/0351-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By The Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Reed against Collins.
    
      Monday, December 19.
    Leaving a blank in the writ of error for the month ‘ in which the Court is to be held, is a clerical error, which this Court may amend by the precipe.
    
    If it appears in the narr. that the suit was commenced before the justice, before the cause of. action accrued, it is a fatal error.
    A venire facias de novo will not be granted where no error is shewn in any thing that took place during the trial.
    In Error.
    ERROR to the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia county.
    
      Keemle, for the defendant in error,
    moved to quash the writ of error, because a blank was left for the month in which the Court was to be held to which it was returnable.
    Phillips, contra.
    The return day is fixed by law. Besides, the Court may amend by the prcecipe, which directs, that the writ of error should be made returnable to July Term, 1819. 4 Yeates, 205, 1 Dall. 197.
    He then argued upon the error which had been assigned, that the suit was commenced before the action accrued. The summons issued the 17th September, 1817, and the declaration states the cause of action as having accrued on the 25th September, 1817. Miller v. Ralston.
      Fitzsimmons v. Solomons.
      
       Dolan v. Briggs.
    
    
      Keemle, in reply.
    In Miller v. Ralston, the assumpsit was laid after the time when the cause came into the Common Pleas: but in the present case it is laid before it came into ^ Common Pleas, though after the time when the suit was commenced before the justice.
    
      
       1 Serg. & Rawle, 309.
    
    
      
      
         2 Binn. 436.
    
    
      
       4 Binn. 496.
    
   By The Court.

The error in leaving a blank in the writ of error for the month in which the Court was to be held, is a clerical error which this Court may amend. The law fixes the day in July, to which the writ was returnable, and the clerk ought to have made it returnable on that day, because the prcecipe was for a writ to the July Term.

As to the error assigned by the plaintiff in error, we think it fatal. It appears on the record, that the action was commenced before the justice, before the cause of action accrued. We have decided this point before. The judgment must therefore be reversed.

The defendant’s counsel then moved for a venire de novo, which the Court refused, because no error was shewn in any thing which took place during the trial.

Judgment reversed.