1787-11-13 (static/transcriptions/1787/11/315.jpg)
submit to the Jurisdiction; and if not, he might pleaded to it, and so stay all Proceedings.
Nothing hath been more common than for Plaintiff’s to commence Actions in inferior Courts, knowing the cause of action arose out of the Jurisdiction of the Court; and it is strange that this action should never be devised till those late Precedents which have been cited at the Bar. The great abuses of inferior Courts by an Usurpation of Jurisdiction might be (I confess) a Provocation to find out some new remedies to keep them within their Bounds. Their Practice of issuing Process of Capias without Summons provok’d the Lord Hale to be of that opinion in the case of Read and Wilmolt, that an action of False Imprisonment would lie, because there was none other Remedy; for it being only an Error in Process, is aided by appearance; so that no advantage could be thereof taken on a Writ of Error: And those Courts usurping all transitory actions, altho’ the Causes arose out of their Jurisdiction, did in some measure preval on the Courts at Westminster to give some countenance to this new Action. But in these matters we ought rather to regard the Publick Good than the enlargement of our own
Jurisdictions