20 Aug 1804

Calling a man coward or giving him the lie

... as they are productive of no immediate damage to his person or property, no action will lie in the courts at Westminster

III 104.

As the courts of common law have obtained a concurrent jurisdiction with the court of chivalry with regard to foreign contacts, by supposing them made in England; so it is no uncommon thing for a plaintiff to feign that a contract, really made at sea, was made at the regard exchange, at the royal exchange, or other inland place, in order to draw the cognizance of the suit from the courts of Admiralty to there of Westminster Hall.

III 109.

If the inferior judge or other person ... returns a sufficient cause, [to a mendanus] although it should be false in fact, the court of King's Bench will not trie the truth if the fact upon affidavits; but will for the present believe him, & proceed no further on the mandanus.

III 111.

Method of proceeding upon prohibitions... the party applying for the prohibition is directed by the court to declare in prohibition; that is, to prosecute an action, by filing a declaration, against the other, upon supposition, or fiction, that he has proceeded in the suit below, notwithstanding the writ of prohibition.

III 113.

The remedy for this [threats & menaces for bodily hurt] is in pecuniary damage, to be recovered by action of trespass vi et armis.

III 120.

Where an act is done which is in itself an immediate injury to another's person or property, there the remedy is usually by an action of trespass vi et armis.

III 123.

With regard to libels in general, there are... two remedies; one by indictment, & another by action. The former for the public offence; for every libel has a tendency to break the peace, or provoke others to break it &

III 125.

False imprisonment a heinous public crime.

III 127.

False imprisonment ... may arise by executing a lawful warrant or process at an unlawful time, as on a Sunday.

III 127, 128

Abduction, or taking away a man's wife... ...may either be by fraud & persuasion, or open violence: though the law in both cases supposes constraint, the wife having no power to consent; & therefore gives a remedy by writ of ravishment, or action trespass vi et armis, di uxore rapta et abducta.

III 139

In action of debt the plaintiff must recover the whole debt he claims, or nothing at all. For the debt is one single cause of action, fixed and determined, & which therefore, if the proof varies from the claim, cannot be looked upon as the same contract whereof the performance is sued for.

III 154

In an action on the case, on what is called on indebitatus assumpsit I may declare that the debt, being indebted to me in £20, undertook or promised to pay it, but failed; & lay my damages arising from such failure at what sum I please.

III 155

Whatever therefore the laws order any once to pay, that becomes instantly a debt, which he hath beforehand contracts to discharge. And this implied agreement it is, that gives the pltf a right to institute a second action, founded merely on the general contract, in order to recover such damages, or sum of money, as are assessed by the jury & adjudged by the court to be due from the deft to the pltf in any former action. So that if he hath once obtained a judgment as another for a certain sum, & neglects to take out execution thereupon, he may afterwards bring an action of debt upon this judgment, & shall not be put upon the proof of the original cause of action; but upon shewing the judgm t once obtained, still in full force, & yet unsatisfied, the law immediately implies, that by the original contract of society the deft hath contracted a debt & is bound to pay it.

III 158,