Court of Common Pleas

Torts belong to the subject-matter of Common Pleas as distinguished from Pleas of the Crown.

A case very like that of the mills suggested by Hankford actually came before the Court of Common Pleas a generation later, and Newton C.

Soon after this case was dealt with by the Court of Common Pleas in England, the Supreme Court of New York laid it down (not without examination of the earlier authorities) that conspiracy is not in itself a cause of action.

an assize in the King’s Bench, or an appeal of death in the Common Pleas, are coram non judice, though the writ be His Majesty’s command;

and whereas by the statute made in the third year of King Henry the Seventh, power is given to the Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer of England for the time being, and the Keeper of the King’s Privy Seal, or two of them calling unto them a Bishop and a Temporal Lord of the King’s most honourable Council, and the two Chief Justices of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas for the time being, or other two …

And be it also provided and enacted, that if any person shall hereafter be committed, restrained of his liberty or suffer imprisonment [by the order or decree of any such Court of Star Chamber or other Court aforesaid, now or at any time hereafter having or pretending to have the same or like jurisdiction, power or authority to commit or imprison as aforesaid, or by the command or warrant of the K …

For example, the Crown’s right to hold “Common Pleas” was impliedly admitted, when the barons asked and obtained that these should be tried in some certain place (that is, at Westminster).

Thus two groups of judges were formed which, in later years, developed into separate courts—the Court of Common Pleas (known as “the Bench,” that is, the ordinary Bench), and the King’s Bench (known earlier as the court Coram Rege, supposed to be held in the King’s presence).

(a) Assizes of darrein presentment were thereafter to be taken before “the Justices of the Bench”;

When the semi-official talking in any cause in the Common Pleas was done, the students knew pretty well what was sound pleading in the general opinion of the judges and serjeants.