9 Tenn. 101 | Tenn. | 1826
delivered the opinion of the court. For
the defendant in error, it is, first, insisted, that citizens of this state alone have power to attach the property of nonresidents, and that the citizenship of the plaintiff, as well as the non-residence of the defendant, must appear upon the face of the record, or the judgment is coram non judice and void. It is believed that this attachment, in form, pursues the statute of 1794, is the same in substance and words as all attachments within the knowledge of this court heretofore issued, and is well enough. The main question is, will debt lie in the debet and detinet, on the contract declared upon? Debt lies only fora certain sum
In the case of M’Connel and Brown vs. Caldwell, at Sparta, at the last term, the court decided substantially this question. Debt in that case was brought upon a sealed note, by which the obligors promised to pay $>400 in specie, or current bank notes.- That the defendants had the right to pay the one or the other was admitted, but it was contended that the parties had referred their contract to a specie standard of valuation of the bank notes, and it was impossible for a jury to assess different damages from those given by the court below. The declaration stood upon demurrer, to a plea of fraud, which was pronounced bad by the court. Judges Williams, Peck and Catron affirmed the judgment of the circuit court, (the other two judges not being present,) for the above reasons; that the parties had contracted for bank notes of specie value, and that lawfully a judgment for a different sum from the one adjudged to the plaintiff below, could never be given — therefore debt in the debet and detinet would lie, and that this case was not like the case where the notes were payable in current bank notes, as in Gamble vs. Hatton and White, Peck’s Rep. 130, and which ,had been followed in several cases since.
See 1 Ch. PI. 101, Com. Dig. debt A, 5.