Case Name: Mors v. McCloud
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1825-05
Citations: 2 Ohio 5
Docket Number: 
Parties: Mors v. McCloud.
Judges: 
Reporter: Cases decided in the supreme court of ohio : upon the circuit at the special sessions in Columbus
Volume: 2
Pages: 1–2

Head Matter:
Mors v. McCloud.
Declaration upon a common promissory note in the same form Specialty is sufficient. as upon a
This case came before Judges Pease and Burnet, by writ of error, at the April Term, 1825, in Gallia county.
The declaration was in these words, “Norman McCloud was summoned to answer unto James Mors, who sues, etc., of a plea of the case, for this, to wit: That the said Norman, on May 18, 1819, at Green township, in the county aforesaid, by his certain note of that date, duly executed, promised to pay the said J. Mors, or order, one hundred dollars, by the first day of October next succeeding said date, as by the said note to the court here shown appears. Yet the said Norman, although often requested, hath not paid the amount of said note, or any part thereof; but the same to pay he hath wholly refused, and still doth refuse, to the plaintiff’s damage of three hundred dollars. Therefore he sues,” etc.
J'The defendant demurred generally. The court below sustained the demurrer, and gave judgment for the defendant.
The error assigned is, that judgment was rendered for the said Norman, when it ought to have been rendered for the said James.
Douglass, for the plaintiff in error, contended:
That the note was sufficiently set out in the declaration — that the defendant was fully apprised of the plaintiff’s claim — that the declaration gave him all the notice necessary to prepare his defense — that the special averments of indebtedness, liability, assumption, and request of payment, found in the old precedents, were useless, and increased the cost bill unnecessarily. He 'referred to Kid and Ohitty, and a case decided in Massachusetts, in support of his declaration. He also referred to a case decided in Jackson county, by the Supreme Court, in which a declaration, .taken from the same precedent,, had been sustained.
King, for the defendant, contended:
That the practice of Massachusetts was no guide for the courts ■of this state — that the doctrine in Kid and Chitty could not be ■sustained — that the mode of declaring on promissory notes, as on specialties, was condemned by the rules and principles of special pleading, and was contrary to the most approved precedents — that :the only plea in its favor was indolence — that it would destroy distinctions useful and supported by immemorial usage — and that he knew of no case in which the question had been settled in the •Supreme Court.

Opinion:
By the Court :
If this question were now presented for the first time, we should at least hesitate. The objections to this laconic mode of declaring, are not without their weight, but we consider the point as settled by our predecessors, and do not feel at liberty to disturb it. The judgment, therefore, must be reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings-
Sote by the Editor. — Beaffirmed, iii. 368.