West V. Barnes - Aftermath

Aftermath

Justice James Iredell was upset by the governing statute and wrote to President Washington to change the law which had required that only the clerk of the Supreme Court could issue writs of error. The Judicial Act of 1792 altered the law to prevent such hardships for future litigants.

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 Circuit Court for Rhode Island. Justice Jay, Justice Cushing and 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, therefore, 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 therefore the ten-day period was not able to fully occur as only three days had passed and was thus not conformable to the statute. Barnes eventually won the ejectment case although 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 in 1820.

According to Cotter v. Alabama, "rior 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, (, 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))