Johnson v. . Winslow

64 N.C. 27

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: January 5, 1870
• Status: Published

Opinions

Reade, J.

A contract without a remedy in the Courts' to enforce it, amounts to nothing; and therefore the law must furnish a remedy. But it need not furnish particular remedy. The remedy may be changed from time to time for the convenience of the courts, and for the purposes of justice, and such change does not inpair the obligation of contracts. A change of remedy, however, not for those purposes but for the favor of one party at the expense of the other, and which does in fact, materially and injuriously affect the rights ,of a party, impairs the obligation of the contract and is void. From the absence of all reason for the change in time of the return of the summons, from the unusually long time allowed for the return, and from the discrimination in the class of debts to which the change is. allowed, it is apparent that the purpose here was, unnecessarily to delay the plaintiff in the prosecution of his right, and the> effect is to impair the obligation of the contract; and therefore the first section of the eighty-sixth chapter of the Acts of (March 22nd) 1869, is void: Jacobs v. Smallwood, 63 N. C R. 112.

There is no error.