Winchester v. Rich
Winchester v. Rich
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The plaintiff recovered a judgment, before a justice of the peace, against Elizabeth Gates and others, partners, trading as the I. X. L. Brick Company, on August 4, 1905. An execution was issued on this judgment by the justice on August 9, 1905, and on the same day returned by the constable “no goods.” The plaintiff, on August 11, 1905, filed a transcript of this judgment in the common pleas and issued execution thereon to the sheriff. The record of the justice showed that the claim of the plaintiff was for wages of manual labor performed by the plaintiff for the defendant. The defendants in this original judgment appeared before the justice, on August 14, 1905, filed the affidavit required by law and appealed from the judgment, and N. B. Rich, the present defendant, entered into recognizance, as surety, in the sum of 1150, “conditioned for the payment of the debt, interest and costs on affirmance of the judgment in the court of common pleas.” The transcript upon the appeal was by the original defendants filed in the court of
The action of the court of common pleas, in quashing the appeal, was the judgment of a court which had jurisdiction of the parties and the subject-matter and cannot be reviewed in this collateral proceeding. The defendants in the .original judgment might have taken an appeal and caused the action of the court to be reviewed, Beale v. Dougherty, 3 Binney, 432, but they permitted the action of the court to stand unquestioned and the judgment of the court made an end of the appeal. That, however, did not determine that there never had been an appeal, nor that this surety was not liable on his recognizance. It was the business of the justice, in the first instance, to determine whether the appeal was regularly taken or not. When the justice allowed the appeal, the rights which it gave to the defendant in the original judgment could not be lawfully withheld from him by the plaintiff, or the sheriff who had the writ of execution in his hands, on the pretense that the justice had committed an error: O’Donnell v. Mullen, 27 Pa. 199. The taking of the appeal, before the transcript thereof was filed in the common pleas, had the effect of superseding the right of the plaintiff to have execution upon his judgment: Plowman v.
When an appeal is taken from a judgment of a justice, the ordinary course results in the entry of a judgment after a jury trial, but it was not necessary that there should be a jury trial in order to constitute an affirmance of the judgment of the justice, within the meaning of the recognizance of the appellee. The failure of the party appealing from the judgment of the justice to file the transcript in the common pleas within the time allowed by law, would in such a case constitute an affirmance of the judgment: Morgan v. Soisson, 21 Pa. Superior Ct. 141. That judicial act of the appellate court by which the controversy between the parties comes to an end, and the plaintiff is placed in position to collect his judgment, is an affirmance of the judgment of the justice. When the appeal is dismissed, or quashed or stricken off because it is not filed in time the judgment is a final one and prevents all further proceedings in the suit, constituting an affirmance of the judgment: Beale v. Dougherty, 3 Binny, 432; Mair’s Estate, 34 Legal Int. 20; Reed
The judgment is reversed and a venire facias de novo awarded.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.