Case Name: Benjamin Richardson vs. William Murray
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1839
Citations: 1 Chev. 11
Docket Number: 
Parties: Benjamin Richardson vs. William Murray.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 25
Pages: 11–12

Head Matter:
Benjamin Richardson vs. William Murray.
Where an obvious arithmetical error, in a discount specially pleaded, was corrected by the jury, so that the discount allowed was greater than that claimed by the plea, the Court would not set aside the verdict.
Before Eichardson, J., at Spartanburgh, Fall Term, 1839.
The defendant pleaded in discount to a note of nine hundred and seventy dollars, the part value of a negro slave whom he had delivered to the plaintiff as security ox satisfaction for á debt of five hundred dollars, “ which negro,” said the plea, “ the plaintiff was to account for at his true value, or what he could be sold at; and the defendant avers that the said plaintiff was afterwards offered and could have obtained for the said negro man the sum of fifteen hundred dollars; and therefore declares and avers that the plaintiff is bound to account to him under the aforesaid agreement for the sum- of nine hundred dollars.”
The jury found for the defendant; upon which the plaintiff appealed,— !
Because the verdict contradicts the plea, which admits seventy dollars to be due to the plaintiff.

Opinion:
Curia, per Eichardson, J.,
held that a verdict, otherwise satisfactory, should not be set aside upon so obvious a mistake in terms only. If a new trial were allowed, the court would also have to give the defendant leave to correct the arithmetical errol* in his plea, and lay his demand at one thousand dollars instead of nine hundred dollars; which would place the parties exactly where they now stood under the verdict.
See 3 Hill, 2S1; 3 MeC. 468. An.
Choice, for the motion;,
Henry and Bolo, contra.
.Motion dismissed; the whole Court concurring.'