Anonymous

1. It lias been the immemorial practice of courts, to order frivolous counts' and false pleas to be struck from the record. 2. A mandamus will not lie to compel the Court of Common Pleas to receive a defendant’s plea.

White applied to the court for a mandamus, to be directed to the Common Pleas of Cumberland, to compel them to receive the defendant’s plea of justification; and stated, as the ground of his application, that an action of trespass had been commenced against the defendant, to-which he had pleaded — 1. The general issue; and — 2. A justification. That the plaintiff’s attorney declined replying to the plea of' justification, but gave notice to the defendant’s attorney, that he would apply to the Court of Common Pleas to strike out the said plea; which, upon motion, the court ordered accordingly'. He contended — 1. That the Court of Common Pleas were-wrong in ordering the plea to be struck out; that the only proper course for a party to pursue, when he thinks a plea frivolous, was, to take judgment as if there was no plea, or reply, or demurrer to it, and that he could not apply to the court to strike it out; because, if the plea was struck out, the defendant could have no remedy by writ of error, anu no mode of bringing the question before a higher court for revision, and cited 3 John. 547. 2. That a mandamus was the proper remedy in this case. 4 Bae. Air. 514, title Mandamus, letter E.