New

Occurs in some technical phrases. New assets, in the Mass. administration laws, does not include proceeds of sales of a patent right which was an item New assignment. In many actions the plaintiff, who hath alleged in his declaration a general wrong, may in his replication, after an evasive plea by the defendant, reduce that general wrong to a more particular certainty, by assigning the injury afresh with all its specific circumstances, in such a manner as clearly to ascertain and identify it, consistently with his general complaint; which is called a new or novel assignment. Jacobt New assignment is a form of pleading which sometimes arises from the generality of the declaration, when, the complaint not having been set out with sufficient precision, it becomes necessary, from the evasiveness of the plea, to reassign the cause of action with fresh particulars. It is used when a defendant has pleaded to a different matter from that which constitutes the real subject of complaint, and should be framed so as to distinguish the true ground of action from that which is covered by the plea. As the object of a new assignment is to correct a mistake occasioned by the generality of a declaration, it always occurs in answer to a plea, and is, therefore, in the nature of a replication.

Wharton.

From the very general terms in which declarations have been allowed to be framed, the defendant is sometimes not sufficiently guided to the real cause of complaint, and is in consequence led to apply his plea to a different matter from that which the plaintiff had in view. In such cases, a plaintiff is obliged to resort, in his replication, to a mode of pleading termed a new assignment, for the purpose of setting the defendant right. A new assignment, as the phrase imports, is an instrument in which the plaintiff assigns afresh his ground of complaint with more certainty and particularity than he had previously done in the declaration, and distinguishes the true ground of complaint from that which the defendant in his plea had assumed it to be. Brawn. In former common-law pleading, new assignment signified a species of reply by the plaintiff to a defendant's plea, by which the plaintiff alleged that he brought his action not for the cause supposed by the defendant, but for some other cause to which the plea pleaded was irrelevant.

— This might arise in two ways: Wliere the plaintiff complained of one of several trespasses in a form so general that the declaration was applicable to any of them, and a trespass in respect of which the action was not brought was (by mistake or design) justified by the defendant;

— or where the defendant pleaded a justification of the trespass complained of, and the plaintiff maintained that there had been an excess beyond what the circumstances justified, or that the trespass was not, in fact, justifiable in the way set up by the defendant. (Lush Pr. 483; Kerr Act. Law.) assignment shall hereafter be necessary or used.

But every thing which has heretofore been alleged by way of new assignment may hereafter be introduced by amendment of the "statement of claim." Mozley Sr W.

New trial

A second or other trial, granted because of some objection established to the course or results of the trial first had of a cause. This is often obtained as the result of a reversal on appeal or writ of error. The phrase is more frequently used in reference to the practice of the courts, particularly those holding jury trials, to revise the proceedings and verdict, upon a motion before a single judge, and to grant a nevr trial upon good ground shown therefor, without putting the aggrieved party to the delay and expense of appeal or error. This forms an important head in procedure. The grounds for which new trials are chiefly granted, upon these motions, are such as the following: That the judge misdirected the jtiry on a point of law; that he admitted or rejected evidence improperly; that he improperly discharged the jury; that he refused to amend the record when an amendment ought to have been made; that the defendant did not receive due notice of trial; that the successful party misbehaved to the prejudice of the defeated one; that the jury, or any of them, have misbehaved, as by drawing lots for the verdict; that the damages are excessive; that the damages are too slight; that the verdict was obtained by a surprise; that the witnesses for the prevailing side are manifestly shown to have committed perjury; that the verdict was against the weight of evidence; that new and material evidence has come to light since the trial. And in some jurisdictions a second trial of certain issues may be demanded of right, without impeachment of the first. There is a jurisdiction of equity to decree a new trial of an action at law, but it is, in modern practice, very sparingly exercised. A new trial is not quite the same thing as a venire de novo, which is a much more ancient proceeding. {3 Bl. Com. 387, 388; see alsQ 393, note by Coleridge; 3 Sieph. Com. usage of the commercial world, a newspaper is defined to be a pub Ucation in numbers, consisting commonly of single sheets, and published at short and stated intervals, conveying intelligence of passing events.

4 Op. Att.-Gen. 10.

The "Chicago Legal News," published in Chicago, although devoted prineipalljyj, to legal intelligence, is a newspaper inT which notices required by statute or the ' order of courts may be published, and comes within the Illinois statutory definition of a newspaper, for the publication of legal notices.

Kerr v. Hitt, 75 111. 51.