13 Ky. 460 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1823
THIS was an action of covenant, brought in the cir-> cfuit court upon an obligation for the payment of $86 and 25 cents in flour, at the market price, &c.
Farrow, who was defendant in that court, pleaded, 1st, “ That the court ought not to hear and take further cognizance of, or sustain the action; because, he ^ays, that upon the-day of March, in the year 1821, he did deliver to the plaintiff, Summers, thirty barrels of flour, at the town of Maysville, as he by his covenant was bound to do, of the value of ‡-, and that the balance due upon said covenant is under fifty dollars, and that the cause of action is within the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, &c. and not within the jurisdic-. tion of the circuit court, &c.”
And for further and second plea, the said Farrow-pleaded, “ that the said court ought not to, hear and take further cognizance of, or sustain the said action; because, he says, that he did deliver to the plaintiff, Summers, at the time and place aforesaid, in payment of his said writing obligatory, to wit, at Maysville, in the county of Mason, the full quantity of thirty barrels of flour, of tile value of fi-, and that the balance due upon said covenant, (if any thing,) does not exceed live pounds, and that the said Summers’ cause of action is within the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, and not within the jurisdiction of the circuit court, &c.”
To each of these pleas Summers demurred, and the demurrers being joined by Farrow, the court rendered judgment sustaining the demurrer to each plea.
Farrow also pleaded covenants performed, and issue being taken thereon, a jury was called, and found a verdict in favor of Summers for $28 and 75 cents in damages, and judgment was thereupon rendered by the court against Farrow. To reverse that judgment, this writ of error, with supersedeas, has been prosecuted by Farrow.
The only question made by the assignment of errors, involves the propriety of the decision of the circuit court in sustaining the demurrers of Summers to Farrow’s pleas to the jurisdiction of the court.
1. We apprehend the decision of the court upon each of the demurrers is correct. If, instead of being for $86 and 25 cents in flour, the obligation upon which tiie action of Summers is founded was for that amount
Were tbe obligation upon wbicb this action is founded, therefore, for the direct payment of money, as it is for a sum exceeding fifty dollars, the first plea of Farrow could not be admitted to contain any thing which can oust the circuit court of its jurisdiction-; for the plea no where suggests that the amount of the obligation has been reduced to fifty dollars by credits endorsed thereon, arid according to our construction, the circuit court possesses jurisdiction in'all cases where the obligation is for more than fifty dollars, unless the amount is reduced to fifty dollars by credits actually endorsed on the obligation.
2, We know that by a subsequent act of the legislature it is provided, that justices of the peace shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of all sums not exceeding fifty dollars, founded on any specialty, bill or note in writing, or account. 2 Dig. L. K. 704. But the expression, sums, employed in that act, we apprehend, should be construed to mean sums of tmoney only, and' that notwithstanding the passage of that act, the circuit court still possesses jurisdiction in those cases of contracts for the payment of any thing else but money, wherein it previously had jurisdiction, as well as in cases of contract for the payment of sums of money exceeding fifty dollars, unless the amount is reduced to that sum by credits actually endorsed upon the writing evidencing the debt. The demurrer to the first plea was, therefore, properly sustained.
3. The second plea alleges the amount of the obligation unpaid, to be less than five pounds; so that its validity must be tested by other acts of the legislature, than those to which we have already referred. We think, however, that according to no law .can the plea be sustained. The act regulating the jurisdiction of justices over sums ®f less value than five poundss, is, no doubt, of more extensive import, than those acts which have increased their jurisdiction to fifty dollars. It is of all causes of less value than five pounds, that the act upon that subject has given cognizance to justices; whereas it is only of all sums not exceeding fifty dollars, founded on any specialty, bill or note in writing, or account, that those acts increasing their jurisdiction have conferred upon justices cognizance to the amount of fifty dollars. Whether a contract be for the payment of money or other thing of Jess value fhan five pounds,
The judgment-must, therefore, be affirmed with costs and damages.