Case Name: Commonwealth against Meckling
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1833-10
Citations: 2 Watts 130
Docket Number: 
Parties: Commonwealth against Meckling.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Volume: 2
Pages: 130–130

Head Matter:
Commonwealth against Meckling.
It is error to refuse to permit a plaintiff to amend his declaration on the trial of the cause,
ERROR to Armstrong county.
On the trial of this action, which was by the Commonwealth for the use of Samuel Hutchardson against Jacob Meckling, sheriff and his sureties, for an escape ; the plaintiff offered in evidence the docket of a justice containing the record of the judgment on which an execution had issued against the same Jacob Meckling, at the suit of Samuel Hutchardson, and offered also a receipt of Jacob Meckling for having received himself into custody, which was dated the 16th of July 1829. The evidence was objected to on the ground that, the same receipt was laid in the declaration as of the 18th of July 1829. The plaintiff then .asked leave to amend his declaration to make it correspond with the receipt; this the court refused, and rejected the evidence.
White, for plaintiff in error.
Buffington, contra.

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
The docket of the justice was competent evidence if duly authenticated. The receipt of the jailor was properly excluded for the variance as the declaration stood; but the description of it ought to have been amended. The case was within not only the true intent of the act of assembly, but the express provision; and the denial of the amendment was error.
Judgment reversed, and a venire ele novo awarded.