Court of Common Pleas: Warrants of Attorney to Confess Judgment

Warrants by defendants, mostly in cases of debt but sometimes in ejectment heard in the Court of Common Pleas, to attorneys allowing judgment to be conceded against them.

There is a complete series from 1802, when the warrants were ordered to be filed with the clerk of the dockets and judgments, until 1849, after which there is a gap until the series resumes from 1866 to 1874.

Filed with them are associated defeasances, in which the defendant laid down the financial terms for a settlement. There are also some cognovits and copies of rules of court.

The warrants are filed in chronological units of between one and several months until 1845, then in annual units to 1849, after which there is a gap of 17 years until a final bundle covering the years 1866 to 1874 carries the series almost up to the end of the court's history in 1875. The earlier warrants are written on pre-printed forms, signed and sealed by the defendant, with the defeasance, or more often a memorandum containing the substance and effect of a defeasance, usually written in the margin or the rear of the form and signed by him. Later the warrants are more often in an entirely manuscript format, with the two parts of the instrument integrated into one document, although printed forms continued in use. Some are annotated as having been enrolled in Chancery.

Topics

Debt

By a rule of the Court of Common Pleas made in 1802 the attorney preparing a warrant of a defendant to allow judgment against them was made responsible for causing the defeasance to be made on the same piece of paper or parchment as the warrant, although an extra sheet could be attached to it if necessary. Financial terms for a settlement were laid down, including provision for all collateral securities, with the provision that if the defendant defaulted the plaintiff would be free to enter up judgment and sue out writs of execution for the whole sum due. Judgment could be entered up after a year without leave of the court. The warrant was signed, sealed and delivered, but the defeasance needed only a signature. The rule of 1802 stipulated that the warrants should be filed with the clerk of the dockets and judgments, and the series begins in December that year.