''West v. Barnes''
2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 401 (1791) was the first
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decision and the earliest case calling for
oral argument
Oral arguments are spoken presentations to a judge or appellate court by a lawyer (or parties when representing themselves) of the legal reasons why they should prevail. Oral argument at the appellate level accompanies written briefs, which also a ...
.
''
Van Staphorst v. Maryland'' (1791) was docketed prior to ''West v. Barnes'' but settled before the Court heard the case: ''West'' was argued on August 2 and decided on August 3, 1791. ''
Collet v. Collet'' (1792) was the first appellate case docketed with the Court but was dropped before it could be heard.
Supreme Court Reporter
Alexander Dallas did not publish the justices' full opinions in ''West v. Barnes'', which were published in various newspapers around the country at the time, but he published an abbreviated summary of the decision.
The Court ultimately decided the case on procedural grounds, holding that a
writ of error
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
(an appeal) must be issued within ten days by the
Clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States
The clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States is the officer of the Supreme Court of the United States responsible for overseeing filings with the court and maintaining its records. The current clerk is Scott S. Harris.
__NOTOC__
Histor ...
as required by federal statute, and not by a lower court located closer to the plaintiff in Rhode Island. As a result of this case, Congress ultimately changed this procedure with the ninth section of the Process and Compensation Act of 1792, allowing circuit courts to issue these writs, thereby assisting citizens living far away from the capital.
Background
This was the first case of
judicial review in the United States where the Court had the opportunity to overturn a
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
state statute regarding lodging payment of a debt in
paper currency
A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand.
Banknotes were originally issued ...
in fulfillment of a contract. The court did not exercise judicial review in deference to the legislature. The court ultimately decided against William West, the petitioner, on procedural grounds.
William West was a farmer,
anti-federalist
Anti-Federalism was a late-18th century political movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Con ...
leader, revolutionary war general, and judge from
Scituate, Rhode Island
Scituate () is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 10,384 at the 2020 census.
History
Scituate was first settled in 1710 by emigrants from Scituate, Massachusetts. The original spelling of the town's na ...
. He owed a
mortgage
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any ...
on his farm from a failed
molasses deal in 1763 to the Jenckes family from
Providence. He made payments on the mortgage for twenty years, and in 1785 asked the state for permission to conduct a
lottery to help pay off the remainder. Due to his service during the Revolution, the state granted him permission. Much of the proceeds were paid in
paper currency
A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand.
Banknotes were originally issued ...
instead of gold or silver. West tendered payment in the paper currency as allowed by state statute, "lodging" the funds with a state judge to be collected within ten days.
David L. Barnes, a Jenckes heir, and well-known attorney and later federal judge, brought suit in federal court based on
diversity jurisdiction
In the law of the United States, diversity jurisdiction is a form of subject-matter jurisdiction that gives U.S. federal courts the power to hear lawsuits that do not involve a federal question. For a U.S. federal court to have diversity jurisd ...
asserting that gold or silver payment was required, and refusing the paper currency. Despite lack of formal training, West represented himself
pro se
''Pro se'' legal representation ( or ) comes from Latin ''pro se'', meaning "for oneself" or "on behalf of themselves" which, in modern law, means to argue on one's own behalf in a legal proceeding, as a defendant or plaintiff in civil cases, ...
in the circuit court in June 1791 before Chief Justice
John Jay
John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, patriot, diplomat, abolitionist, signatory of the Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served as the second governor of New York and the f ...
, Associate Justice
William Cushing
William Cushing (March 1, 1732 – September 13, 1810) was one of the original five associate justices of the United States Supreme Court; confirmed by the United States Senate on September 26, 1789, he served until his death. His Supreme Court ...
, and
Henry Marchant
Henry Marchant (April 9, 1741 – August 30, 1796) was a Founding Father of the United States, an attorney general of Rhode Island, a delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Rhode Island, a signer of the Articles of Confederation, and the ...
. They rejected his arguments. West then pursued appeal to the Supreme Court on a writ of error, attempting to comply with all statutory directions. West was unable to make the journey to Philadelphia to represent himself, so he engaged
William Bradford, Jr., Pennsylvania's attorney general, to represent him. On appeal, Barnes focused on the procedural irregularities. Barnes asserted that the writ had been signed and sealed only by the clerk of the circuit court in Rhode Island instead of by the Supreme Court clerk, which he claimed as necessary. This was asserted despite the fact that West would have had to make an arduous journey in 1791 to Philadelphia within ten days to do so. West lost on this procedural issue and was eventually forced to relinquish his farm.
Opinions
The court's full opinion was extensively covered by period newspapers as no official court reporter was yet published in 1791, and the seriatim opinions were republished in the newspapers and are currently accessible in James R. Perry's ''The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800'', Volume 6, "West v. Barnes," pp. 3-27
The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800 Each of the five justices issued a
seriatim opinion regarding the writ of error, and the justices unsuccessfully looked to
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...
precedent from state courts and pre-Revolution
English case law
English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures.
Principal elements of English law
Although the common law has, historically, bee ...
including
Coke and
Blackstone's treatises. Several of the justices expressed their reservations about the federal statute and suggested alternatives for filing within the ten-day statutory period, but nevertheless each justice refused to expand the meaning of the statute believing that only Congress had the power to do so.
In summation the
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
reporter quoted John Jay and summed up the case
holding as follows:
''West, Plaintiff in error, v. Barnes et al.''
''On the first day of the term, Bradford presented to the court, a writ
In common law, a writ (Anglo-Saxon ''gewrit'', Latin ''breve'') is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court. Warrants, prerogative writs, subpoenas, a ...
, purporting to be a writ of error
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
, issued out of the office of the clerk of the circuit court for Rhode Island district, directed to that court, and commanding a return of the judgment and proceedings rendered by them in this cause: And thereupon he moved for a rule, that the defendant rejoin to the errors assigned in this cause.''
''Barnes
Barnes may refer to:
People
* Barnes (name), a family name and a given name (includes lists of people with that name)
Places
United Kingdom
*Barnes, London, England
**Barnes railway station
** Barnes Bridge railway station
** Barnes Railway Bri ...
, one of the defendants, (a counsellor of the court) objected to the validity of the writ, that it had issued out of the wrong office: and, after argument,''
''THE COURT were unanimously of opinion, That writs of error to remove causes to this court from inferior courts, can regularly issue only from the clerk's office of the court.''
''Motion refused.''
Aftermath
Justice
James Iredell
James Iredell (October 5, 1751 – October 20, 1799) was one of the first Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President George Washington and served from 1790 until his death in 1799. His son, James Iredell ...
was upset by the governing statute and wrote to President Washington to change the law, which allowed only the clerk of the Supreme Court to issue writs of error. The Process and Compensation Act of 1792 altered the law to prevent such hardships for future litigants.
[''The United States Supreme Court: the pursuit of justice,''
by Christopher L. Tomlins, Houghton Mifflin Company, American Bar Foundation
Edition: illustrated
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005
, , pg. 3]
/ref>
Several months after the decision, on November 9, 1791, Barnes brought another suit of ejectment to eject West from the mortgaged farm. He filed suit in the United States circuit court, Circuit Court for the District of Rhode Island. Justice Jay, Justice Cushing and Judge Henry Marchant held the plea bad for a second time. They decided that William West lodged payment of his debt with a Rhode Island judge on September 16, and so Barnes had ten days to collect it, according to the state statute. The Rhode Island "lodging" Act was, however, suspended on the 19th of that month and so the ten-day period could not fully occur since only three days had passed and was thus not conformable to the statute. Barnes eventually won the ejectment
Ejectment is a common law term for civil action to recover the possession of or title to land. It replaced the old real actions and the various possessory assizes (denoting county-based pleas to local sittings of the courts) where boundary disp ...
case, but he had difficulty ejecting West's family from the farm, as West had sold the farm to a son-in-law. West's estate continued to be disputed after his death, resulting in the First Circuit decision ''West v. Randall
''West v. Randall'' (29 F. Cas. 718 (R.I. 1820)) is one of the earliest class action lawsuits cases in the early United States under federal case law in which one individual was allowed to sue on behalf of a larger group. The decision was written ...
'' in 1820.
According to ''Cotter v. Alabama,'' "Prior to 1791 it was the practice that a writ of error could only issue from the office of the clerk of the supreme court. In ''Mussina v. Cavazos,'' ( 3, US 355 6 Wall. 355), it is stated that a decision to that effect in West v. Barnes... led to the enactment of the ninth section of the act of 1792, being section 1004 of the Revised Statutes..." (''Cotter v. Alabama G. S. R. Co.'', 61 F. 747, 748 (6th Cir. 1894)).
See also
* List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 2
*
* William West
References
{{reflist
United States Supreme Court cases
Legal history of Rhode Island
Scituate, Rhode Island
1791 in United States case law
1791 in Rhode Island
United States Supreme Court cases of the Jay Court
Banknotes of the United States