Bayard’s Notebook, 26.[*]
Court of Common Pleas of Delaware, Sussex County.
November, 1793.
Plaintiff replied to defendant’s plea and took issue thereon. Defendant afterwards tendered a certiorari in order to remove the cause to the Supreme Court.
Plaintiff’s counsel objected to the allowance on the ground that the cause was at issue, and, therefore, by the Act of Assembly [2 Del. Laws 1012] passed January, 1791, could not be removed. To this it was answered by the counsel for defendant that the replication was not upon stamped paper, and, therefore, by the Stamp Act void
and of consequence the cause not at issue.
Miller, Vining and Bayard for plaintiff. Wilson an Peery for defendant.
After argument by counsel, PER CURIAM. We consider this subject as of considerable magnitude and therefore have been willing to hear everything that could be said. The Court are bound to give to all laws a reasonable construction, such as is correspondent to the intent of the legislature. We are of opinion that it was not the intention of the legislature that the Act should operate generally upon suits brought before August Term last. A strange record would be made up if one half of the proceedings were drawn out at length, and one half in short entries. Suppose a plea abbreviated “N. E. F.,” a replication at large could not answer to it. If no pleadings have been filed, or if such as are filed are at large, then the subsequent pleadings must be at length; in other cases in suits commenced before August last, proceedings are to be conducted as heretofore. The replication is therefore
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good, and the cause now at issue, and of consequence we cannot allow the certiorari.