Ott v. Dill

Eccleston, J., delivered the opinion of this court. This is an action of assumpsit, instituted by the appellant against the appellee, in which damages to the amount of $1000, are laid or claimed in the nar; the pleas being non assumpsit and limitations. The jury rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $30, and the defendant obtained a rule upon the plaintiff, to show cause why a non pros, should ²⁵⁵ not be entered, which rule was made absolute. From which decision this appeal is taken.

Whether the judgment below is to be affirmed or reversed, must depend upon the construction which is to be given to the act of 1852, ch. 239. In an argument of much force and ingenuity, the counsel for the appellant has insisted, that this act has extended the jurisdiction of justices of the peace to all cases of contract, where the debt or damage laid or claimed shall not exceed one hundred dollars; and that the amount of the- verdict, as formerly,'is no longer the test of jurisdiction in such cases: so that whenever a suit ex contractu is instituted in the circuit court, and the debt or damage laid or claimed shall exceed $100, no matter what may be the amount of the verdict, such court has jurisdiction and may render judgment upon it for the plaintiff, if the verdict be in his favor. In O’Reilly vs. Murdoch, 1 Gill, 33 , the various acts, relating to the jurisdiction of magistrates, from that of 1791, ch. 68, down to that of 1834, ch. 296, inclusive, were referred to and commented upon ; but in concluding the opinion the court say, “These views are not to be considered as in any respect applicable to cases of contract, but are intended to be confined to actions of tort, where the amount of the damages are peculiarly a subject for the consideration of the jury.” The case before them was one of that description. Beall vs. Black, also reported in 1 Gill, 203 , was a case of tort; but the court there, in very explicit terms, state the difference, up to the passage of the act of 1835, ch. 201, between cases of contract and those of tort, in relation to the test of jurisdiction.

Reference is made to O’Reilly vs. Murdoch, as deciding the standard of jurisdiction in tort, not to be the sum recovered by the verdict, but the sum laid or claimed in the plaintiff’s declaration. The court then say, “By an act passed in 1824, a new test of jurisdiction was first introduced in cases sounding in tort, and not in contract, and from- that period, the same rule has been preserved inviolate. The rule established by that act, (and which has uniformly been adhered ²⁵⁶ to ever since,) to test the jurisdiction of the justices of the peace in cases of tort, has been the damages claimed, and not-the sum recovered. In cases of contract, a different principle seems to have prevailed, and in all such cases, the sum-recovered, and not the matter put in demand is made to decide the question of jurisdiction.

From this rule no departure has been made by the act of 1835.” The principle here stated in regard to cases of contract, is quoted and relied upon in Carter vs. Tuck, 3 Gill, 251 , which was an action of assumpsit. The two latter cases not only speak of and construe the act of 1835, but they, in connection with the first, show, unequivocally, what the late Court of Appeals considered to have been, prior to that act, the true tests of jurisdiction of justices of the peace, in the two classes of cases spoken of. O'Reilly vs. Murdoch, it appears was argued at June term 1843, and Beall vs. Black, at the following December term. On looking at the original opinions, we find they were both filed on the same day, and were written by the same judge.

The third case, (Carter vs. Tuck,) refers to the second, and in that reference is made to the first. It is therefore a reasonable inference, that all the acts spoken of in the first were considered in deciding the other two. One of those acts is that of 1834, ch. 296; in which it is enacted, “That from henceforth, the justices of the peace shall have jurisdiction over, and may take cognizance of, all cases whatever, where the debt or damages laid or claimed shall not exceed the sum of fifty dollars, except in cases or actions of slander, assault and battery, and in cases or actions where the'title to lands shall or may come in question.” Notwithstanding this provision, the court held, in the two latter decisions referred to, that prior and subsequent to the'act of 1835, in cases of contract, “the sum recovered, and not the matter put in demand, is made to decide the question of jurisdiction.” It has been suggested in argument, that the court considered the act of 1834, as not having altered the rule just stated, because' prior to the passage of that act, magistrates had ²⁵⁷ jurisdiction up to fifty dollars, in all cases of contract. And this being so, the legislature had no design to give any increase of jurisdiction in matters of contract, consequently no part of the law could properly apply to that class of actions; but the intention must have been to include cases of tort, not provided for by any of the previous acts, and