Case Name: Lee vs. Consoly
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1857-02
Citations: 26 N.J.L. 209
Docket Number: 
Parties: Lee vs. Consoly.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 26
Pages: 209–210

Head Matter:
Lee vs. Consoly.
The plaintiff in ejectment must lile his declaration within thirty days after the day tire summons is returnable.
Argued before Justices Elmer and Haines.
P. H. Mulford, for the defendants, moved to non pros. for not declaring in time.
Dudley, for plaintiff.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Elmer, J.
A summons in ejectment having been issued returnable on the twenty-fifth day of April last, was duly returned with the sheriff's affidavit of service. On the ninth day of May, an order, made at chambers by one of the justices of this court, was filed, admitting the landlord to defend. No declaration having been filed, a motion was- made by counsel for the defendants, at. the November Term following, to non pros, the plaintiff. If the plaintiff was bound to declare within thirty days after the return day of the summons, it was too late to move for a non pros., the motion not having been made,'as required by the twentieth rule of court, at the next term after the failure. If the time for declaring did not expire until thirty days after the twenty days within which application might be made to admit the landlord to defend, or until thirty days after the order was filed, the motion was in time.
We think the true construction of the forty-eighth and forty-ninth sections of the new practice act (Nix. Dig. 641) is, that the plaintiff in ejectment is bound to declare within thirty days after the return day of the summons, on pain of being non prossed.
This time having expired before the commencement of June Term, the motion at November Term was too late, and must be denied.