Page:The Federal and state constitutions vol1.djvu/618

576 Suits may originate in the supreme court or court of common pleas.

One judge of the supreme court, or of the court of common pleas, may, if the other judges come not, open and adjourn the court, and may also make the necessary rules preparatory, respectively, to the trial or argument of causes.

At any time pending an action for debt or damages, the defendant may bring into court a sum of money for discharging the same, and the costs then accrued, and the plaintiff not accepting thereof, it shall be delivered for his use to the clerk or prothonotary of the court; and if, upon the final decision of the cause, the plaintiff shall not recover a greater sum than that so paid into court for him, he shall not recover any costs accruing after such payment, except where the plaintiff is an executor or administrator.

By the death of any party, no suit in chancery or at law, where the cause of action survives, shall abate; but, until the legislature shall otherwise provide, suggestion of such death being entered of record, the executor or administrator of a deceased petitioner, or plaintiff, may prosecute the said suit; and if a respondent or defendant dies, the executor or administrator, being duly served with a scire facias, thirty days before the return thereof, shall be considered as a party to the suit, in the same manner as if he had voluntarily made himself a party; and in any of those cases the court shall pass a decree, or render judgment for or against executors or administrators as to right appertains. But where an executor or administrator of a deceased respondent or defendant becomes a party, the court, upon motion, shall grant such a continuance of the cause as to the judges shall appear proper.

Whenever a person, not being an executor or administrator, appeals from a decree of the chancellor, or applies for a writ of error, such appeal or writ shall be no stay of proceeding in the chancery, or the court to which the writ issues, unless the appellant or plaintiff in error shall give sufficient security, to be approved respectively by the chancellor, or by a judge of the court from which the writ issues, that the appellant or plaintiff in error shall prosecute respectively his appeal or writ to effect, and pay the condemnation-money and all costs, or otherwise abide the decree in appeal or the judgment in error, if he fail to make his plea good.

No writ of error shall be brought upon any judgment heretofore confessed, entered, or rendered, but within five years from this time; nor upon any judgment hereafter to be confessed, entered, or rendered, but within five years after the confessing, entering, or rendering thereof, unless the person entitled to such writ be an infant, feme-covert, non compos mentis, or a prisoner, and then within five years exclusive of the time of such disability.

The equity jurisdiction heretofore exercised by the judges of the court of common pleas shall be separated from the common-law jurisdiction, and vested in a chancellor, who shall hold courts of chancery in the several counties of this State. In cases of equity jurisdiction, where the chancellor is interested, the cognizance thereof shall belong to the court of common pleas, with an appeal to the high court of errors and appeals.

The judges of the court of common pleas, or any two of