Thomas Reynolds, Appellant, v. James Mitchell and others, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM ST. CLAIR.
Where judgment is rendered by a justice of the peace, for a greater amount than the defendant owes, his remedy is not by application to a court of equity, but by appeal to the circuit court.
It is right to dissolve an injunction and dismiss the bill, without compelling an answer from all the defendants.
This was a bill in chancery, filed by Reynolds against Mitchell and others. The bill states that Reynolds made his note in 1821, to one Wm. Small, for one hundred state paper dollars, or bills of the State Bank of Illinois, which Small assigned in the same year to Mitchell, who is made defendant to the bill, and that said Mitchell, as assignee of said Small, afterwards brought his action on said note, before one Edmund F. Wilkinson, a justice of the peace for St. Clair county, on the 21st of September, 1822, and obtained a judg*178ment on said note for 99 dollars and 99 cents, and that said Wilkinson, who is also made defendant, combining and .confederating with the said Mitchell to defraud said Reynolds, rendered judgment on said contract for so much specie, when the said paper, when the note became due, was worth only 40 cents to the dollar, and that the justice had no power to give judgment for the nominal amount of the note in specie. The bill further alleges that Reynolds, at the time the judgment was rendered, offered to the justice the amount of the note in bills of the State Bank, which were refused— that an execution has issued on said judgment for specie which Reynolds replevied for three years, after the expiration of which, another execution issued for specie, which was levied on the personal property of Reynolds. The bill prays for an injunction, and the defendants to answer, &c. Mitchell alone answered the bill, admitting the purchase of the note from Small, and the rendering judgment thereon, and the replevy, &c.,but denies that Reynolds ever offered to the justice the amount of the note before the judgment, averring his willingness to take it before the judgment, but not after, and contended that as Reynolds did not pay the note in State Bank paper before the judgment, and when it was due, that he was entitled, therefore, to recover the value of the amount of said state paper, at the time the note fell due, and that said justice had a right to determine judicially what that value was, and that he did determine it to he 99 dollars and 99 cents, as stated in the bill. He also pleads the judgment and replevy in bar of all equity—denies that state paper was not worth more than 40 cents to the dollar, and all fraud, combination, &c. Upon filing this answer, a motion was made to dissolve the injunction and dismiss the bill, which was sustained by the court, and an appeal taken to this court. It was assigned for error that the court erred in dismissing the bill and dissolving the injunction, for the reason, First, because the justice had no right, by law, to render a judgment for specie, on the note ; and Second, because a decree was made, and the injunction dissolved, when the parties in interest, and charged in said bill, had not answered, to wit, the justice Wilkinson.