Carnes v. Duncan ( 1795 )

THE defendant pleaded payment and nul tiel record ; and on motion, on the part of the plaintiff, the court ordered the defendant to elect by which of the two pleas he would abide; thereby deciding that where there are several pleas, mil tiel record can never be one of them. The principle of the decision, was declared to be, that nul tiel record being a matter, the knowledge of the pr oaf of which the defendant might reduce to absolute certainty, it was not within the reason of the statute enabling defendants to plead several pleas; for that the sole intent of the statute was to relieve against the hardship of restricting a defendant, having several matters of just defence, all of them however of a nature, that the proof of them cannot be previously positively ascertained, to rest his cause on one of them only,