Judicature, Justices of Assize, Jail Delivery, Oyer and Ter- be discontinued miner, Justices of the Peace, Commissioners, or other Courts by a new comof Record, which now are or which hereafter shall or may be mission. established within this Island, shall be discontinued by the making and publishing of any new commission or association, or by altering the names of the Justices of His Majesty's Supreme Court of Judicature, Justices of Assize, Jail Delivery, Oyer and Terminer, Justices of the Peace, Commissioners or other Courts of Record, as aforesaid; but that such new Justices of His Majesty's said Supreme Court of Judicature, Justices of Assize, Jail Delivery, and of the Peace, Commissioners, or other Courts of Record as aforesaid, may proceed in manner, as if the former Commissioners, Justices or other Commissioners, had remained and continued without alter ation. CAP. IV. See 26 G. 3, c. c. 17. No judgment, &c., to be reversed for any writ razed or interlined. Justices of Courts may amend all de An Act for amending defects in Pleas, Processes and Records. 7. and 10 Vic., BE E it enacted by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Assembly, That from and after the publication hereof, that for error in any record, process or warrant of attorney, original writ, or judicial panel, or return, in any places of the same razed or interlined, or in any addition, subtraction, or diminution of words, letters, syllables, or titles found therein, no judgment or record shall be reversed or annulled; but the Justices of the Courts before whom such records and process may be depending, shall have power to examine such records and process, words, pleas, warrants of attorney, writs, panels, or returns, and to reform and amend, in affirmance of the judgments of such records and processes, all that which to them seemeth to be the misprision of the Clerk (except appeals, indictments of treason, felonies and outlawries for the same), and the substance of the proper names, surnames, and additions left out in the original writs, and writ♦ of exigent, and any other writs containing proclamation. fects which are their Clerk. misprision of Cases excepted. be amended. II. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, Writ of error That all writs of error, appeals from judgments in any action, varying from real, personal or mixed, according to the course of proceedings the record may in this Island, wherein there shall be any variance from the original record, or other defect, may, and the same shall be amended and made agreeable to such record, by the Courts where such writ or writs of error, or such appeals shall be returnable; and that where any verdict shall be given in any action, suit, bill, plaint, or demand, in any of His Majesty's Courts of Record, which now are or which hereafter shall or may be established within this Island, the judgment thereupon no judgment shall be stayed, &c., for any defect in any Bill, After verdict, Not to extend to appeal of felony, &c. shall not be stayed or reversed, for any defect or fault, either in form or substance, in any bill, writ, original or judicial, or for any variance in such writs from the declaration, or other proceedings. III. Provided, nevertheless, that nothing in this Act contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to any appeal of felony or murder, or to any process upon any indictment, presentment, or information of or for any offence or misdemeanor whatsoever. Disallowed by Repealed. 25 G. 3, c. 3. CAP. V. An Act to render good and valid in law, all and every of the proceedings in the years one thousand seven hundred and eighty, and one thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, which in any respect related to or concerned the suing, seizing, condemning, or selling of the Lots or Townships hereinafter mentioned, or any part thereof. CAP. VI. An Act for altering, amending, and reducing into one Act, an Act made and passed in the twenty-fifth year of His present Majesty's reign, intituled "An Act to alter and amend so much of an Act made and passed in the twenty-first year of His present Majesty's reign, intituled 'An Act to explain, amend, and render into one Act, all the laws now in being for the purpose of making and repairing Highways in this Island,' as relates to the time appointed by said Act for performing Statute Labour, and some further regulations as to the payment and duty of Overseers of the Highways." See 26 G. 3, c. 4, and 10 Vic., c. 17. After an issue tried, there CAP. VII. An Act for reformation of jeofails and mispleadings, and to prevent arrests and reversals of judgments, and for the better advancement of justice. BE E it enacted, by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Assembly, That from and after the publication hereof, if any issue be tried by the oath of twelve or more indifferent ment given not- men for the party plaintiff or demandant, or for the party withstanding tenant or defendant, in His Majesty's Supreme Court of shall be judg any misplead Judicature within this Island, or in any other Courts of Record which now are or which shall or may be established ing, &c. therein, the Justice or Justices by whom judgment thereupon ought to be given, shall proceed and give judgment in the same-any mispleading, want of colour, insufficient pleading or jeofail, any miscontinuance, or discontinuance, or misconveying of process, misjoining of the issue, want of warrant of attorney for the party against whom the same issue shall or may be tried, or other default or negligence of the parties, their counsellors or attorneys, had or made, to the contrary notwithstanding; and the said judgment shall stand according to the said verdict, without reversal by writ of error, or false judgment: provided, that in avoiding of errors, through the When warrants negligence of attorneys, every person named as attorney in of attorney actions and suits, prosecuted and pleaded to issue, shall, from shall be filed. time to time, deliver, or cause to be delivered, his or their sufficient and lawful warrant of attorney, to be entered of record, for each and every of the said actions or suits wherein they shall or may be named as attorneys, to the Clerk of the Court that is to say, the attorney for the plaintiff or demandant shall file his warrant of attorney as aforesaid, the same term he shall have declared, and the attorney for the defendant or tenant shall file his warrant the same term he shall have appeared, upon pain of forfeiting unto our Sovereign Lord the King the sum of five pounds, for not so delivering the said warrant of attorney-the same to be recovered by action of debt, bill, plaint, or information. After verdict, judgment shall &c., for want of form, &c. not be stayed, prevented and II. And be it further enacted, That after verdict as aforesaid, the judgment thereupon shall not be stayed or reversed, for any defect in form, in any writ, original or judicial, count, declaration, bill, plaint, suit or demand, or for any variance in form only between the original or bill, and the declaration or plaint, or for want of any writ original or judicial, or for any imperfect or insufficient return of any Sheriff or other officer. III. And be it further enacted, That after verdict, judg- Divers jeofails ment thereupon shall not be stayed or reversed for want of an in suits of law averment of any life or lives, so as the said be proved reformed. person to be alive; or for awarding the venire facias to a wrong officer upon any insufficient suggestion; or because the visne is in some part misawarded, or sued out of more or fewer places than it ought to be, so as some one place be right named; or for misnaming any of the jurors in surname or addition, in any of the writs, or the returns thereof, so as it be proved to be the same man that was meant to be returned; or by reason that there is no return upon any of the said writs, so as a panel of the names of jurors be returned and annexed to the said writ; or for that the Sheriff's or other officer's name, having the return thereof, is not set to the return of In what case, verdict, shall not be stayed for want of any such writ, so as it be proved that the said writ was returned by such officer; or by reason that the plaintiff in any ejectione firma, or in any personal action or suit, being an infant under the age of twenty-one years, did appear by Attorney therein, and the verdict passed for him. IV. And be it further enacted, That judgment shall not be judgment, after stayed or reversed, after verdict, for want of form or pledges returned upon the original writ, or because the name of the Sheriff is not returned on the original writ, or for want of form of plead- entering pledges upon any bill or declaration, or for not alleging ing. the bringing into Court any bond, bill, indenture, or other deed mentioned in the declaration or other pleading, or for want of allegation of bringing into Court any letters testamentary, or letters of administration, or for omission of "by force of arms, and against the peace," or of mistaking the Christian name or surname of the plaintiff or defendant, demandant or tenant, sum or sums of money, day, month, or year, by the Clerk, in any bill, declaration or pleading, where the right name, surname, sum, day, month, or year, in any writ, plaint, roll, or record preceding, or in the same roll or record, where the mistake is committed, is or are once truly and rightly alleged, whereunto the plaintiff might have demurred and shewn the same for cause; nor for want of averment of "this he is ready to verify," or for "this he is ready to verify by record," or for not alleging as it appears by record; or for that there is no right venire, so as the cause were tried by a jury of the proper country or place where the action is laid; nor for that the increase of costs after a verdict in an action, or upon a nonsuit in replevin, are not entered to be at the request of the party for whom the judgment is given; nor by reason that the costs in any judgment whatsoever are not entered to be by consent of the plaintiff - but that all such omissions, variances, defects, and all other matters of the like nature, not being against the right of the matter of the suit, nor whereby the issue or trial are altered, shall be amended by the Justice or Justices of His Majesty's said Supreme Court of Judicature, or of any other of the Courts of record aforesaid, where such judgments are or shall be given, or whereunto the record is or shall be removed by writ of error or by appeal, in any action, real, personal or mixed, according to the usage and course of proceedings in this Island. Justices shall give judgment on demurrer, &c., without regarding any defect in writ, V. And be it further enacted, That where any demurrer shall be joined, and entered in any action or suit in His Majesty's Supreme Court of Judicature aforesaid, or in any other of the Courts of Record which now are or which hereafter shall or may be established within this Island, the Justice or Justices thereof shall proceed and give judgment, according as the very right of the cause and matter in law shall appear unto may them, without regarding any imperfection, omission or defect, in any writ, return, plaint, declaration or other pleading, process, or course of proceeding whatsoever, except those only which the party demurring shall especially and particularly set down and express, together with his demurrer, as causes of the same, although such imperfection, omission or defect be matter of substance, so as sufficient matter appear in the said pleadings, upon which His Majesty's said Supreme Court of Judicature, or any other Court of Record as aforesaid, give judgment according to the very right of the cause; and therefore no advantage or exception shall be taken of or for any immaterial traverse, or of or for the default of entering pledges upon any bill or declaration; or of or for the default of alleging the bringing into Court any bond, bill, indenture, or other deed whatsoever, mentioned in the declaration or other pleading; or of or for the default of alleging the bringing into Court letters testamentary, or letters of administration; or of or for the omission of "by force and arms, and against the peace," or either of them; or of or for the want of averment of this he is ready to verify," or of "this he is ready to verify by record;" or of or for not alleging "as it appears by the record" but any of the said Courts shall give judgment according to the very right of the cause as aforesaid, without regarding any such imperfections, omissions and defects, or Exceptions any other matter of the like nature, except the same shall be specially and particularly set down and shewn for cause of demurrer. fession, &c. not fection, &c. VI. And be it further enacted, That no judgment entered Judgments enupon confession, nihil dicit or non sum informatus, in His tered upon con-Majesty's said Supreme Court of Judicature, or in any other to be reversed Court of Record aforesaid, shall be reversed, nor any judg- for any imper ment upon any writ of inquiry of damages, executed thereon, be stayed or reversed for or by reason of any imperfection, omission, defect, matter or thing whatsoever, which, by force of this Act, would have been aided and cured as jeofails, in case a verdict of twelve men had been given in the said action or suit, so as there be an original writ or bill, and warrants of attorney duly filed, as by this Act is directed. VII. And be it further enacted, That this Act shall extend in all jeofails as aforesaid, to all suits in His Majesty's said Supreme Court of Judicature, or in any Court of record that now is or which hereafter may be established for recovery of any debt immediately owing, or any revenue belonging to His Majesty, his heirs or successors. VIII. Provided always, and be it enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That nothing in this Act before contained, shall extend to any writ, declaration, or suit of appeal of felony or Act to extend to all suits for the King's debts, &c. To what this extend. |