Brands v. Wise

Citations

• 16 Pa. Super. 189
• 1901 Pa. Super. LEXIS 41

Syllabus

<p>Justice of the peace — Jurisdiction—Appeals—Record.</p> <p>Where the question of the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace has not been affirmatively raised in the court below, and neither the charge of the court nor any of the rulings upon evidence have been excepted to, the question is to be determined by the appellate court by the record proper, of which for the purpose of deciding such question, the evidence and the charge form no part.</p> <p>Justice of the peace — Jurisdiction—Failure to claim, interest.</p> <p>Where the transcript from the docket of a justice of the peace shows that the plaintiff's demand “ was for $300 for breach of a contract on the sale of real estate which the defendants agreed to pay the plaintiff for making a sale of certain real estate if said sale was made by March 24, 1894,” the court will not assume that the interest which accrued after March 24, 1894, swelled the demand beyond the amount which justices of the peace had jurisdiction, because (1) it may well be doubted whether it is necessarily to be inferred that the money was due and payable on March 24, 1894, and (2) the plaintiff was not bound to claim interest, and the fair interpretation of the record is that he did not claim it.</p> <p>Interest is an incident of a debt overdue, which a party may claim or not at his pleasure. A nonclaim of the interest is very unlike a voluntary reduction of the principal. The one is the absence of the assertion of claim, and the other is the actual throwing away a portion of a fixed or settled claim or demand.</p>