Supreme Court of Pennsylvania:
January Term, 1788.
Millar versus Hall.
RULE to shew cause why an Exoneretur should not be entered on the bail-piece.—The Defendant had obtained his discharge under the insolvent law in the State of Maryland, which law was enacted subsequent to the debt in question, and to the institution of this suit. It was stated, and allowed, that the money for which the action was brought, has been paid to Hall in Maryland, on account of goods sold and delivered upon a commission as the partner of Millar; but that the original agreement under which they acted in the sale of those goods was executed in Philadelphia, and that the proceeds belonged to merchants residing in Pennsylvania, where, consequently the payment was to be made. It was, likewise, admitted, that the Defendant was resident in, and subject of the laws of, Maryland, and that the Plaintiff was resident in, and subject to the laws of Pennsylvania: And it did not appear to the Court that the Plaintiff was returned as a creditor in the Defendant's schedule; nor was any notice of the time and place of surrender served upon him, though a general publication, of the Defendant's intention to take the benefit of the Insolvent law, was made, in the usual form, in the Baltimore Gazette.
Moylan, in shewing cause against the rule, argued, that according to the strict idea of a municipal law, it was limited in its operation of the jurisdiction of the state that made it; for jus civile est quod quisque sibi populus constituit; and to a free people particularly, it must appear unreasonable that there should be legislation where there is no representation. 2 Inst. 98. There are, however, he acknowledged, cafes in which an indirect effect if given to foreign statutes
in
