Case Name: CHEESEMAN and WILKINS against LEONARD
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1809-09
Citations: 3 N.J.L. 549
Docket Number: 
Parties: [*] CHEESEMAN and WILKINS against LEONARD.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 3
Pages: 137–137

Head Matter:
[*] CHEESEMAN and WILKINS against LEONARD.
OK CERTIORARI.
The Common Pleas act not as a court of errors on appeals. Their judgment on the merits, is a bar to another action for the same cause.
It appeared by the state of demand filed in this cause, that a former action had been brought for the same injury as complained of in the action below, before a justice of the peace of Gloucester county. That [412] the justice had tried the cause and rendered judgment for the plaintiff below, Leonard; that the plaintiff in certiorari appealed from the judgment of the justice, to the Common Pleas of Gloucester. That the Common Pleas reversed the judgment of the justice, on which the plaintiff below brought an action for the same injury before another justice, and obtained judgment again. To reverse this last judgment this certiorari is brought.

Opinion:
By the Court.
The proceeding below is founded on a mistaken apprehension of the law. The Comnion Pleas, in cases of appeal, do not act as a court of error, but re-try the case on its merits. This cause has therefore been determined on its merits, by a court of competent jurisdiction; and as long as the judgment of the Common Pleas is in force, no new action for the same cause can be maintained in any other court. This judgment must therefore be
Reversed.
Cited in Vannoy v. Givens, 3 Zab. 201; Rodenbough v. Rosebury, 4 Zab. 491.