Shock v. M'Chesney
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Motion for a new trial. It was an action of slander, tried at Harrisburgh, before Yeates and Smith, Justices, on 3d October 1799, at Nisi Prius, when a verdict passed for the plaintiff and $55 damages were assessed. The words charged, were words asserting before a justice of the peace of Dauphin county, that the plaintiff had been guilty of forgery in erasing and altering the time of payment in a note payable to himself.
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Motion for a new trial. It was an action of slander, tried at Harrisburgh, before Yeates and Smith, Justices, on 3d October 1799, at Nisi Prius, when a verdict passed for the plaintiff and $55 damages were assessed. The words charged, were words asserting before a justice of the peace of Dauphin county, that the plaintiff had been guilty of forgery in erasing and altering the time of payment in a note payable to himself. It did not appear by testimony, that the defendant had used the expressions at any other time or place, but before the justice. In pursuance of the accusation, the plaintiff…
1Opinion of the CourtYeates, J.
Neither Judge Smith nor myself are ashamed to *510admit, that in the decision of this cause at Nisi Prius, we were mistaken in the principle which governed our opinion. We were misled by the authority in 2 T. R. 231, and the cases in 1 Salk. 21.2 Salk. 456, that malicious prosecution will not lie, where an indictment has been found and a nolle prosequi entered. The law does not seem to discriminate accurately on this subject, when the prosecution shall be considered at an end. The case has been much more fully argued now; and we freely admit, that from the new authorities, which have been adduced…
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