Case Name: ZEIGLER against GRAM
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1825-11-14
Citations: 13 Serg. & Rawle 102
Docket Number: 
Parties: ZEIGLER against GRAM.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Sergeant & Rawle)
Volume: 13
Pages: 102–104

Head Matter:
[Lancaster, (adjourned court,)
November 14, 1825.]
ZEIGLER against GRAM.
IN ERROR.
A justice of the peace has not jurisdiction of debt, for the penalty imposed by the act of the 13th of April, 1791, for not entering satisfaction of a judgment.
Writ of error to the District Court for the city and county of Lancaster.
The defendant in error and plaintiff below, Frederick Gram, brought this action of debt against the plaintiff in error and defendant below, Conrad Zeigler, to recover a sum not exceeding half the debt or damages adjudged, being the penalty imposed by the act of the 13th of April, 1791, Purd. Dig. 306, for not entering satisfaction of a judgment after it had been discharged. The declaration was in debt for three hundred dollars, and averred a judgment in favour of Zeigler against Gram, on a bond in the penalty of twelve hundred dollars, conditioned for the payment of six hundred dollars, recovered in the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster county, that the same had been discharged, and that notwithstanding the eosts, &,c. were tendered, the defendant refused to enter satisfaction, and laid the damages at three hundred dollars. The case was arbitrated, and an award made in favour of the plaintiff, for the sum of ten dollars with costs of suit, and judgment rendered thereon, from which there was no appeal.
pleckert, for the plaintiff in error,
now contended, that the a fit of the 13th of April, 1791, provided that “the penalty should be recovered in like manner as other debts are now recoverable in this commonwealth.” This debt, being under one hundred dollars, ought to have been sued for before a justice of the peace, and the party suing in the Court of Common Pleas loses his costs. Debt is the proper remedy for-a penalty to the party grieved, and the penalty is properly speaking a debt, and founded on the implied contract which every man is under to obey the laws. Act of the 20th of March, 1810, sect. 1. 5 Serg. & Rawle, 44. 1 Chitt. Pl. 87, 101, 104. 1 Serg. & Rawle, 418.
P. Ross, contra.
The jurisdiction of a just.ice.is confined to contracts express or implied. A penalty is neither. A justice, therefore, has not jurisdiction of debt for a penalty to any amount.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Gibson, J.
This penalty is declared to be recoverable as other debts were recoverable when the act was' passed by which it is imposed. The jurisdiction of justices of the peace in the action of debt, as well by the acts of assembly then in force as those which have been passed to supply their place, has all along been restrained to causes of action arising from contract express or implied. When a statute imposes a penalty, but prescribes no method of recovery, recourse may doubtless be had to the action of debt; and every debt is said to arise out of a contract either express or implied. But in jurisprudence the word contract is generally used to denote a bargain or agreement; and it is plain, that in these acts of assembly it was used in that sense by the legislature, who had in view those contracts that arise immediately out of a course of dealing between the parties, and not that sort of contract that arises remotely out of the compact of government. In regard to the matter of costs, as affected by the choice of the forum, a party will always be able to estimate, with tolerable accuracy, the amount of a demand which arises out of a course of dealing, by recurring to the value of the property which was the subject of it, or the extent of the responsibility that was involved; but in an action for a penalty which is imposed as in this case for a tort, the damages can be measured by no standard whatever, and it is therefore impossible to swear with a safe conscience to any particular sum. But where the penalty is not given merely as compensation for the particular injury, but as a means of compelling performance of what has been made a duty on grounds of public expediency, the damages actually suffered would not constitute the sum which the injured party might be entitled to recover; they might be assessed as a punishment in terrorem, and therefore the amount of his demand might not be susceptible of estimation, even if it were otherwise as to the injury which he had suffered. But the very point was decided at Sunbury, a few years since, in a case which was never reported, and the names of the parties to which I do not recollects in which it was held, that an action could not b|e maintained before a justice of the peace, to recover a penalty for travelling as a pedlar without a license. It seems to me, thén, the legislature never intended to give jurisdiction to the justices of the peace, of the cause of action for which this suit was brought below, and that the plaintiff is entitled to costs.
Judgment affirmed.