date

6 Feb y 1808 Appeal Principle
6 Feb y 1808

Appeal

Principle

25 But whether money be or be not commensurable with the wrong, if on the score of compensation money be allowed, the distinction between principal and interest ought still to be observed, interest ought to be allowed in addition to principal: otherwise the influence of the principle which forbids the supposing a man to take advantage of his own wrong, will fail[?] of extending itself to cases /not extend itself to these cases as to others /of this sort /to these incommensurable cases/.

26. Let ,1,000 for example, be the compensation money allowed to a father for the seduction of his daughter, allowed as in English practice, by the verdict of a Jury: and let a year be ther interval length if time betweeen the day of the wrong committed, and the day of the verdict formed. In this case even supposing the money paid on the day of the verdict found, and the rate of interest allowed the non-commercial rate, not ,1,000 only but in the case of simple interest ,1,050 ought to be the sum paid: But in practice, the money never is paid on so early a day as that on which the verdict is delivered. Therefore to interest up /down/ to the time on which the verdict is delivered ought to be added interest up /down/ to the time on which the money is paid.

To make a distinct allowance in the score of interest as above would to a Jury, though in practice never done, not be physically impracticable /impossible/: but to render /compleat/ the compensation compleat by continuing the interest dwon to the time of payment would be impossible.
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    the more simple the form in which a question can be presented to any judicatory, and especially to a judicatory of which a Jury form a part, unquestionably the better. In a quick example for a Jury to form an estimate of the timw[?] that on the score of compensation ought to be allowed, supposing the money paid on the very day of the wrong done. A Judge of the subordinate class who has nothing to do /whose functions are performed without communication/ with the Jury, is employed to tax costs: the same Judge might with equal propriety, and much less difficulty be employed to compute interest on damages.

    27. Under the fee-gathering system So compleatly irreconcilable are the ends of justice with the ends of judicature, that after the exception made for the few instances in which in the chance /random/ [...?] process of compensation money under the name of damages avoided by inexperienced and uninstructed men without the aid /benefit/ of a simple[?] rule of instruction laid down /framed/ by authority for their assistance, the sum awarded happens instead of falling short of the mark is going beyond it, happens to hit it, it may with confidence and safety be affirmed, that an instance of adequate satisfaction made is without example in English practice. 28. The assertion might moreover be extended to the observance of the rule which /forbids/ forbids the suffering to man to profit by his vast[?] wrong, even it act[?] for the loss inflicted under the name of costs a check the force of which is in an[?] equal degree the [...?] of fashion, and bears no proportion to the end prevented out by that rule.
  • Title: [6 Feb y 1808 Appeals principles]
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    23 Compensation is not compleat /arguable/ unless and untill the party wronged be put into as good a plight as he coul have been in had no such wrong been sustained by him, committed by the wrongdoer.

    19 The time On[?] at which any allowance made on the score of intrest ought /should/ in virtue of a general provisional rule commence on the day on which the wrong came first to be sustained: ex.gr. in case of a wrong consisting in the non-payment of money, the day on which the money became due: and so in regard to all other wrongs, in whatever other shape inflicted and sustained.

    20 From this rule exceptions will /may/ require to be made to prevent a man to where money is due from lying by for the purpose of ob[...?] on the score of interest compensation money as[?] well beyond the loss really incurred by him, and or as well beyond the profit really made or capable[?] of being made by the debtor: in which view according to the nature of the transaction /case/ it may prefer to lay it down as and for a subordinate general rule, absolute or provisional, that the day from which the allowance on the score of interest shall be computed shall be the day in which a deman has been made, that demand being accompanied with notice of an instruction[?] to claim interest /allowance on the score/.

    21. N.B. One of the devices of the fee-gathering system consists in this that where[?] interest allowed, the day from which it is computed is not [...?] (if so early) than the day on which the judgment is considered as pronounced, that is till the legislation has run its course. The interest up to that day from the day on which the money became due is thus the property offered to [...?] by Judge and C o as the price of Costs.
  • Title: [6 Feb y 1808 on L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 6 Feb y 1808

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    22. When the wrong consists in the non-payment of money, the wrong and the compensation, i.e. the compensation obviously suited /adapted/ to the nature of the wrong, exist in the same shape. But whatsoever be the shape in which the wrong has taken place, the compensation may, and in general /for the most part/, without impropriety, be administered, as above, in a pecuniary shape.

    24 There are some instances in which although the shape given to the compensation be pecuniary yet, owing[?] to the shape taken by the wrong, the rule which requires that in consequence and in virtue of the compensation received the party wronged shall find himself in as good a plight as he would have been in had no such wrong been committed, can not with propriety be said to have been exactly observed. In this[?] case are those wrongs the seat of which is in the reoutation /of which reputation is the seat/, especially if it be through the medium of the person that the wrong is inflicted. Whatsoever may be his real feelings, a man to whom on the score of compensation for the seduction of his wife or daughter money has been paid can not be expected or consistently with common decency called upon to say now that I have recovered this money I am as well satisfied as if my wife, or as well satisfied as if my daugher, had never been seduced: not accordingly /therefore/, without a fresh wrong offered to his reputation, could the ad[...?] of the satisfaction be pronounced by any other person not[?] excepting him the Judge by whom the compensation had been awarded, not excepted: and so in other cases to a considerable extent, in all which cases, whether it be or be not proper that money should enter into the compensation of the compensation, the wrong, at any rate in so far as money does enter into it, the syffering from the wrong, and the enjoyment from the money are quantities, strictly speaking not commensurable.