Case Name: Thomas Morton, assignee of Alexander Kilgore, who was assignee of Jacob Harman Turner against Joseph Plowman
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1793-04
Citations: 1 Yeates 251
Docket Number: 
Parties: Thomas Morton, assignee of Alexander Kilgore, who was assignee of Jacob Harman Turner against Joseph Plowman.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Yeates)
Volume: 1
Pages: 250–251

Head Matter:
Thomas Morton, assignee of Alexander Kilgore, who was assignee of Jacob Harman Turner against Joseph Plowman.
When a justice of the peace has received improper evidence, hut the party might have an appeal, and has entered into recognizance in nature of special bail, the court will not interpose.
Certiorari to Jonathan Penrose, of Philadelphia county, esquire. This was an action brought on a promissory note, and the justice had given judgment for the plaintiff for 4I. 7s. 6d. and costs.
Mr. Armstrong for the plaintiff.
Mr. Sampson Eevy for the defendant.
Exception was taken, that the note, though the defendant’s signing of it was contested, was not proved by the subscribing witnesses, who might have been procured, but the proof respecting it was by comparison of it with the hand writing of the defendant, on which the justice founded his judgment.
It appeared, that the defendant after judgment, had entered *2521 a recognizance in nature of special bail, and that J eighteen months had elapsed before his taking out the certiorari.

Opinion:
By the court.
Unquestionably the proof before the magistrate was not the legal evidence which the law calls for, where the subscribing witnesses could have been had. Had this been a debt under forty shillings, where the party had no appeal, the court would most probably have set aside the proceedings, But here the party had a full and complete remedy, by an appeal, and we will not furnish him with an extraordinary remedy, where he has neglected to use an obvious one, clearly within his reach. The great delay also which he has affected, furnishes us with an additional argument why we should not now interpose.
Judgment affirmed.