Court Opinion

ID: 9865430
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 17:39:35.322255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:22.746347
License: Public Domain

Clayton, Chief Justice,

dissented and assigned his reasons at length. He stated the rule to be, that in the construction of statutes you are to take the words in their common acceptation, unless technical words be used, and then they are to be taken technically and according to their established meaning; he referred to Shelley’s case to show that the intention of the testator would be sooner violated than that a word of art should be understood differently from its established meaning. Tenor is a technical word; its meaning is as well established in reference to legal instruments as the meaning of the word “heir” in testamentary dispositions; and as a technical word it invariably means an exact copy. If in pleadings it must be so taken (and this seemed to be admitted) why not in reference to the *473entry of a judgment, which is the last stage and consummation of all pleadings.
JR. H. Bayard, for plaintiff.
J. ¿2. Bayard, for defendant.
He would not say that the law under which this judgment professes to be entered was unconstitutional; but it is a law in derogation of common right and ought to be construed strictly. No one will doubt that a man in making a contract.and delegating a specific power has the right to select the agent for the execution of that power; and it is, at the least, a violent and harsh exercise of legislative power to deprive him of this right. It is a principle in the construction of statutes that they shall be rendered as consistent with the natural principles of justice and common right as possible; and he thought there was a plain interpretation of this law that would satisfy all its provisions, give effect to every part of it, and yet make it entirely consistent with the contract of the parties. It would avoid the hardship and the absurdity of substituting one agent and attorney in the place of another, of the party’s own choosing, without his consent. The act provides that it shall be the duty of the prothonotary on the application of the holder of a bond “in which judgment is confessed, or containing a warrant for an attorney at law, or other person to confess judgment” to enter judgment thereupon. Now if these words or other person enter into the bond and form a part of the warrant of attorney there is no difficulty in authorizing the clerk to enter judgment, for the contract authorizes him under the designation of “other person.” He would take the words conjunctively and not disjunctively, and confine the prothonotary’s power of entering judgments strictly to the case of a bond and warrant of attorney authorizing in its terms “any attorney at law or other person” to confess the judgment. He thought this construction fully authorized by the terms of the act, and necessary to save, on the one hand, the rights of the parties; and to avoid, on the other, the arbitrary and oppressive exercise of power by the legislature which is involved in a contrary construction.
On this interpretation the entry of judgment in the present case is unauthorized. The warrant being to “any attorney of any court of record in the state of Delaware or elsewhere,” does not extend to the prothonotary either by a special designation or in general terms.
Rule discharged.