On July 3, 1822, Samuel C. Roane filed a lawsuit in debt for Swanson Yarbrough, the plaintiff, against Conrad Huttzman. Yarbrough alleged that Huttzman had executed five promissory notes between in December 1811, to be paid between January 1812 and December 1816, for a total amount of $541.66 2/3. This allegedly took place at Ouachita "in Clark County." Deputy Clerk Thomas W. Newton issued a writ of capias for Huttzman. A deputy sheriff named E. Black served the writ on Huttzman in Point Chicot Township, Arkansas County. The writ empowered the sheriff to arrest Huttzman and to jail him until the trial unless Huttzman could post a bond.

Huttzman posted his bond on August 19. Hugh Logue was his surety. The bond was payable to James Hamilton, the Sheriff of Arkansas County. On August 26, William Trimble, representing Huttzman, petitioned for oyer--that is, asked to have the promissory notes read out loud in court--and filed a plea claiming that Yarbrough had fraudulently induced him to execute the bonds.

The case was continued until the December term of the court. On Dec. 20, the record book indicates that the court ruled that the parties had leave to take depositions. Three days later, attorneys Robert Crittenden, Chester Ashley and William Trimble entered a plea for Huttzman, claiming that it was too late to sue because the five-year statute of limitations had already passed. The case was continued over until the next term. In April, the plaintiff filed a demurrer. In it Sam Roane, attorney for the plaintiff, swore in an affidavit in open court before Clerk David McKinney that prior to the present term of court he believed that instruments "without seal" such as these promissory notes were not subject to a statute of limitations, and also that he now believed that the notes had been executed in what became Louisiana, not Arkansas, and that he believed the defendant was now a resident of the Arkansas Territory. The court ruled that the case would be continued, overruled the demurrer of the plaintiff, and ordered that the plaintiff would have to pay the costs until the outcome.

At the August Term, the record book indicates that Yarbrough refused to prosecute his suit further. The court ordered Yarbrough to reimburse Huttzman. This case is interesting first because Roane should have known about the statute of limitations, second because he almost certainly did know that Ouachita was not in Clark County but was in the Territory of Orleans, and third because Trimble originally made a weaker argument--that of fraudulent misrepresentation--but after the three attorneys worked together on the second plea, they made a much stronger argument that the statute of limitations had run, which probably played a major part in the decision of Yarbrough to drop the suit.

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