Withers v. . Stinson

79 N.C. 341

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: June 5, 1878
• Status: Published

Opinion

Bynum, J.

It was admitted by the counsel for the plaintiff that the case of Blum v. Ellis, 73 N. C., 293, was a decisive authority against him, but he seeks in a well prepared and considered argument to induce the Court to reconsider and reverse that decision. Blum v. Ellis, was a well considered case upon a review of the conflicting decisions of other Courts up to that time. The importance of adhering to decisions once solemnly made, and thus preserving a uniformity in the law, can not be over estimated; and nothing less than a clear conviction that the decisions are erroneous and ought to be overruled, will justify a' departure from them. Such a conviction has not been produced upon our minds by the able argument and the authorities of the plaintiff’s counsel. Nor can the Court, other things being equal, lose sight of a train of evils which must follow a reversal of that decision, — evils which could not well be foreseenjby debtors or creditors, who alike supposed, and had the right to suppose, that a discharge in the Court of Bankruptcy was a final discharge from all preceding debts, then provable. There is error. Judgment reversed and proceedings dismissed.

Error. Judgment reversed.