April 24, 2012

Micajah Clarke v. Joseph Havens et al., Wayne, 1818

Previously:


-----------

MICAJAH CLARKE v. JOSEPH HAVENS ET AL.

COURT OF APPEALS OF KENTUCKY

8 Ky. 198; 1818 Ky. LEXIS 42; 1 A.K. Marsh. 198

April 18, 1818, Decided

PRIOR HISTORY:  [**1]  Writ of Error to reverse a Judgment of the Wayne Circuit Court. 

DISPOSITION: Judgment affirmed, with cost. 

COUNSEL: Pope for plaintiff, Bibb for defendant in error. 

JUDGES: Judge OWSLEY. 

OPINION BY: OWSLEY 

OPINION

 [*198]  Judge OWSLEY delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a writ of error, brought to reverse a judgment  [*199]  rendered against Clarke in the court below, upon an appeal from a judgment of a justice of the peace.

By the pleadings in that court, the obligation upon which Clarke sought a recovery is admitted to have been given for the purchase of tickets in a lottery set up by him; and as he was not only the complaining party in that court, but now asks a revision of the decision there rendered against him, it becomes material to decide whether the obligation given upon such a consideration can be sustained.

The pleadings seem to have been drawn under an impression, that no other lotteries were, at the time of the giving the obligation in question, interdicted by law, but such as might be composed of blanks and prizes; and to that opinion we should be strongly inclined, were there no other statute in relation to lotteries but that of 1779, contained in the Chancellor's Revision, [**2]  119, and in the Appendix to the second volume, Littell.

But, deciding this cause under the act of Virginia of 1769, Chan. Rev. 7, although the lottery of Clarke may have been composed entirely of prizes, we can have no hesitation in affirming the judgment rendered against him.

For as, by that act, all lotteries, of whatever description, are expressly interdicted, it follows that no legal obligation can be created by the purchaser of tickets.

The judgment must be affirmed, with cost.

No comments: