Case Name: Josiah N. Boggs vs. F. W. Symmes
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1832-05
Citations: 8 Rich. 443
Docket Number: 
Parties: Josiah N. Boggs vs. F. W. Symmes.
Judges: JOHNSON and Hakjpbb, JJ.," concurred.
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 42
Pages: 443–445

Head Matter:
Josiah N. Boggs vs. F. W. Symmes.
An alias must correspond with the original in the amount of damages laid.
An alias can only issue from the clerk’s office of the district to which the original is returnable.
BEFORE EYANS, J., AT ANDEESON, SPKING- TEEM, 1832.
The report of his Honor, the presiding Judge, is as follows :
“ This was an action of slander for charging the plaintiff with stealing nails. The defendant in addition to the general issue pleaded the statute of limitations. The facts in relation to this plea were, the words were uttered in September, 1830. Both parties lived in Anderson. On the 18th February, 1831, the plaintiff lodged a writ in Pickens which was returned non est inventus. The writ was issued by J. E. Reese, plaintiff’s attorney, and charged the defendant with uttering and publishing certain words to plaintiff’s damage two thousand dollars. On the 9th Sept., 1831, another writ was issued (in Anderson District), which was called an alias, and served. This writ was signed by Burt and Reese, plaintiff’s attorneys, and was for speaking, uttering, and publishing, certain false, scandalous, and malicious words to the plaintiff’s damage five thousand dollars. This second writ, it was contended, was not a continuation of the first, being variant from it in several particulars. If it was a good continuation of the first writ, then the action was not barred, otherwise the action was barred, as more than six months had elapsed from the speaking of the words to the issuing of the last writ. I refused a motion for a new suit, and charged the jury that the action was not barred. I am by no means certain that I was right in so deciding, but thought it the better course, a$ the verdict settles the controversy between the parties if my decision was right, and if wrong, the con troversy will be settled by the opinion of the Appeal Court reversing my decision.”
The defendant appealed, and now moved this Court to set aside the verdict, and for a nonsuit or new trial, on account of the error or misdirection of the «residing Judge, as to the plea of the statute of limitations, the second writ not being a continuation of the first.
1. Because of the material variances between the two.
2. Because one was issued in Pickens District, the other in Anderson.
Whittier, Wardlaw, for appellant.
Burt, contra.

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
O'Neall, J.
The only question in the case is, whether the writ issued in Anderson District, and called an alias, was a good continuance of the original writ issued in and returned to Pickens District. That it was not, I entertain no doubt, on both of the grounds taken ' in the notice of appeal. Our original writ is in place of the eapias of the English Courts. In 1 Sell. 71, after speaking of the eapias, it is said, "if defendant can be served before the return thereof, sue out a eapias by continuance, which is precisely the same as the first eapias, only put in the praecipe the words eapias by continuance, and also the date, when the first writ issued." In 2 Arch. Prac. 157, it is said, " care must be taken that the writ upon which the defendant is arrested, or ultimately brought before the Court, be of the same species with that originally sued out, and entered on the roll as above mentioned, and that the continuances correspond with both."
From these authorities it is plain that the original and alias, must correspond in all the essential parts. Both writs are sufficiently identical, in being for slander, and for words spoken. The description of the canse of action, if generally the same, would not by a slight change in the words used in describing it in the alias, render it no continuance of the original. Neither would the fact, that the alias was signed by other attorneys, than he who issued the original, be any objection to it. The damages laid in the original writ, are, however, an important and essential part of it, and in this particular the alias must correspond with it; for when we find the damages are laid in the two writs at different sums, the conclusion is inevitable that they are not for the same cause of action. This conclusion cannot be helped by anything out of the record.
That one is a continuance of the other must appear by comparison, and is to be judged of alone from the identity of both writs, in all the essentials. In this case the damages are laid in the original at two thousand dollars, and in the alias at five thousand dollars. This is a clear variance, and prevents the alias writ, as it is called, from being a continuance of the original.
An alias can only be issued from the clerk's office of the district to which the original is returnable. Before the alias is issued, the original must be returned; and being returned, the clerk then may seal the alias. No other clerk could seal the alias but he who was the clerk of the district to which the original was returned; for that is the warrant to issue the alias ; and none but he, to whose office it belongs as a record, could have it before him, to authorize the issuing of the latter.
On both grounds, therefore, the writ called an alias was not a continuance of the original, and must itself be regarded as the commencement of the suit. The statute of limitations had run before it issued, and consecpiently the plaintiff was not entitled to recover.
The motion for a nonsuit is granted.
JOHNSON and Hakjpbb, JJ.," concurred.
Motion granted.