West V. Barnes - Opinion

Opinion

The court's 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. Each of the five justices issued a seriatim opinion regarding the writ of error, and the justices unsuccessfully looked to common law precedent from state courts and pre-Revolution English case law 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 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, purporting to be a writ of error, 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, 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.