11 Pa. 336 | Pa. | 1849
The opinion of this court was delivered by
No doubt, the stipulation saving the rights of the defendant below, notwithstanding the entry of the judgment by consent, would enable him to maintain this writ of error, and therefore the motion to quash it, as having issued to remove a judgment confessed, must be denied. But is there anything apparent upon the record, upon which the writ can be made to operate ? The effort is not to impeach the judgment, but leaping over that, the plaintiff in error seeks to strike off the appeal, because of the insufficiency of the recognisance acknowledged and the sureties of the appellant. Before Means v. Trout, 16 S. & R. 349, and the Burgess of Huntingdon v. Jackson, 2 Pa. R. 431, the practice was to quash appeals from judgments of justices of the peace and awards of arbitrators, for any substantial defect or irregularity in the form of the statutory recognisance. But, from the ignorance or carelessness of the officers intrusted with the business of taking these securities, and the many consequent blunders committed by them, this practice became intolerable from the hardships it entailed on suitors, and this court, in the cases just cited, felt compelled to institute a different rule for the government of future cases. Since then, it is the duty of the appellee, dissatisfied with the recognisance, to rule the appellant to perfect his bail within a prescribed period, or, in default thereof, to suffer a dismissal of his appeal. This step was not adopted in the case before us. The appellee pursued the
Judgment affirmed.