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2 Whart. 9

Chambers v. Carson

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided December 12, 1836

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1836-12-12

Mb. Bayard moved for judgment in this case, which was an alias scire facias sur mortgage, brought by Thomas Chambers, administrator (cum testamento annexo,) de bonis non of Thomas Duncan, Esq. deceased, against Charles Carson, surviving administrator of the goods, &c. of John Carson, deceased; the writ having been returned “ nihil” A doubt was expressed at the bar, whether such judgment could be regularly obtained, since the act of 13th June, 1836; the 39th section of which…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1836-12-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 1896

3 state decisions

201836184018501860187018801890decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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The Court

¶1said that the intention of the legislature must be supposed to have been to direct the method of serving a scire facias, when service can be made; and not to alter the return in cases where the writ cannot be executed, nor to interfere with the convenient practice of considering two nihils as equivalent to service. The practice of the Coui’tin these cases, is really a dispensation of service; and the reason of it is that the plaintiff having a debt of record in the very Court apparently unsatisfied, which must be executed by the process of the Court within the county, it would be unreasonable to require him to pursue process further, for the purpose of bringing the defendant in; for without such dispensation, it may happen that the plaintiff will be delayed inconveniently, if not indefinitely. The l’eason is applicable to the case of a scire facias upon a mortgage— which can be brought only in the county in which the land lies; and it would amount to. a denial of justice in some cases, to hold that service of the writ must be made upon the defendant personally, or at his place of residence, as in the case of a summons.

¶2Judgment for the plaintiff.

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