Majority
p. 47JEHU FORWOOD vs. WILLIAM QUAYLE and HENRY LODGE.
Headnote
Certiorari. Debt: demand $37 98: appearance: trial by referees and report of “no cause of action.” Judgment accordingly, and plaintiff for costs.Exception; (verified by affidavit.) — Because after the rendition of judgment the justice, on the application of the plaintiff, awarded a new trial and appointed other referees, to rehear the case, which new trial the justice afterwards refused to proceed in; whereby the plaintiff was deprived of his right of appeal by the lapse of time.
The affidavit stated that upon the rendering of this judgment, he demanded a transcript within the fifteen days, with a view to an appeal: that the justice told him he had the right to a new trial, which he then demanded, and the justice named the second referees: that he
p. 48
afterwards, and the day after the fifteen days expired, informed the plaintiff that he had been mistaken about his right to a new trial, and refused to enter the application and grant of a new trial.
Wm. H. Rogers, for plaintiff in error.
J. A. Bayard and Gilpiv, for defendants in error.
The exception cannot be allowed, and it is needless to hear proof of the fact as stated. It touches a matter subsequent to the judgment, and not appearing on the record. It suggests as error the refusal of the justice to proceed to a second trial, which itself would have been error. The plaintiff was not entitled to a new trial, and the justice had no right to grant it. If by erroneously asking a new trial, he has suffered the time for appealing to elapse, it is his owm folly, but cannot vitiate a judgment already correctly rendered. His ignorance of the law or of his own rights cannot impair the rights of the defendant.
Judgment affirmed.