Dyche v. Patton

• Decision Date: 31 August 1857
• Citation: 56 N.C. 332,3 Jones 332
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: JOHN R. DYCHE v. A. J. PATTON and others.

3 Jones Eq. 332

56 N.C. 332

JOHN R. DYCHE

v.A. J. PATTON and others.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

August Term, 1857.

This Court will not set aside a verdict obtained in a court of law by perjury, and order a new trial, unless the witness, on whose testimony the verdict was given, has been convicted of perjury, or has died since the trial, so that his conviction is rendered impossible.

CAUSE transmitted from the Court of Equity of Cherokee county.

The bill alleges that the plaintiffs were sued in an action of trover, by the defendant, to the Superior Court of Macon county, for the conversion of certain store-goods, to which the defendant set up title as a purchaser from Morris and Colvert; that the plaintiffs were constables in the county of Cherokee, and having judgments and executions in their hands against the said firm of Morris and Colvert, they levied upon these goods, and having sold them, applied the proceeds to the satisfaction of the executions in their hands; that upon the trial of this suit, one Gideon F. Morris, the father of J. C. Morris, one of the said firm of Morris and Colvert, appeared as a witness in behalf of the plaintiff in that suit, and falsely and corruptly swore that he, acting as the agent of the said J. C. Morris, made a bona fide sale of all the said store-goods to the plaintiff, before the executions in their hands were levied on the same, and before any lien attached on the said goods in favor of these executions; that by means of the said false oath, the said A. J. Patton was enabled to recover, and did recover, from the plaintiffs, a large sum of money, to wit, the sum of $550, with costs of suit, amounting in all to $741; that the said A. J. Patton well knew that the said oath of the said G. F. Morris was false, and that he wilfully and corruptly suborned and procured the witness Morris, thus falsely to testify in his behalf; that plaintiffs had just found out, during the week in which the bill was filed, that they could prove the falsity of the testimony given by the said G. F. Morris on the trial aforesaid; that they are now able to make such proof.

They pray for an injunction, and for such other and further relief as the nature of their case may require, and to the Court may seem meet.

The answers of the defendants denied fully the facts alleged; and at the August Term, 1852, of the Supreme Court, the judgment dissolving the injunction previously obtained, was affirmed. (See 8th Ire. Eq. Rep. 595.)

The bill was continued over as an original bill, and testimony taken in the cause; but as the opinion of the Court proceeds on the want of equity in the plaintiff's bill, it is not deemed necessary to note further the facts stated in the answers or the proofs.

The cause being set down for hearing, was sent to this Court for trial.

J. W. Woodfin, for the plaintiff .

Baxter, for the defendants .

NASH, C. J.

The bill, in substance, is to procure a new trial of a cause which had been previously...